Phantoms of Fall (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 2) (4 page)

“Yes,” I said vehemently, “I bent over to pick up one of
the soda cans and got too close to the pool. I felt a hand on my
shoulder and I thought someone was helping me up. When I
reached out, she shoved me in.” He had to believe me—he
just had to.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t know. I should have asked you
what happened.” There was sorrow in his eyes as he realized
that he abandoned me when I needed him the most.

“That’s right—you should have!” I fought hard against
the tears welling in my eyes but obviously not hard enough
because they escaped leaving a trail down my face.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He repeated the phrase
over and over again. “How can I make this up to you? Please
tell me, I’ll do anything for you—anything!”

What
did
I want him to do?
What I most wanted was
to turn back the hands of time to that afternoon, to the
glorious day we spent at The Hideout talking and kissing. I
knew that was impossible and I wasn’t sure it could ever be
possible again. But at least we could try.

“Take me home—I need to change my clothes—then
take me to The Hideout. I want to be alone with you.” Bad
things didn’t happen when we were alone. We never fought
when we were alone.

“Anything you want, Ruby, anything to make you
happy.” He pulled the car back out onto the road and said
nothing more.

Once we got to The Hideout, I realized he was still
wearing the same clothes he was wearing when he jumped
into the pool to rescue me. “Zach, you should really go home
and change first—you’re going to freeze.” While the days
were still hot, the nights had started to take on the chill of fall.

“I’m fine—I needed to cool off anyway,” he laughed
awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure I would find his joke funny.

I didn’t laugh. “Yeah…about that.…” I didn’t know
where to start. I never had to have a conversation like that
with anyone. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. He
behaved like a monster, but I still loved him.
Some girls
would have been impressed by a guy getting into fights over
her, but not me.
He had to know I wasn’t cool with his
behavior. Not cool at all.
“Go ahead—let me have it. Tell me what a jerk I am!

Tell me I’m the worst boyfriend in the world. Just please,
please
give me a chance to make this up to you. I can’t live
without you, Ruby.” The desperate pleading in his voice
almost stopped me in my tracks, almost made me change my
mind and tell him all was forgiven.
But I had to stand my
ground with him—this
had
to be the last time he lost all
control like that.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was a pool party?
Why
didn’t you tell me every other girl there would be in a
swimsuit?” I could tell by his reaction that whatever he
thought I was going to say, that certainly wasn’t it.

“Chloe was dressed like you….” he answered quietly.

“Zach, you know what I mean! Tell me why.” I was
pretty sure I knew the answer already but I needed him to say
it.

“I didn’t tell you about the pool because I figured if
you knew, you wouldn’t want to go. But I wanted everyone to
see us together, so they would know you were mine. I never
thought you would fall in, honest I didn’t.”

“What about my second question?” I wasn’t going to
go easy on him.

He fell back onto the grass and stared at the sky. “I
didn’t want the other guys to see you dressed like that. Ryan
was all over you as it was—I can’t even imagine what would
have happened if he’d seen you in a bikini.”

Ryan was all over me?
He offered a couple of crude
comments but that was all.
Zach was reading between the
lines—lines I wasn’t even sure were there in the first place.

“He wasn’t all over me. He never even touched me.”
“But I knew what he was thinking. You’re too special
to be treated like a piece of meat.”

 

“And you’re not?” Misty wanted him as much if not
more
than Ryan wanted me.

 

“What do you mean?”

“Misty can say the same basic things to you and you
expect me to just blow it off. She even touched you at Open
House and I wasn’t supposed to be mad.” I could hear the
anger growing in my voice.
I was about to be handed the
double standard—I could just feel it.
I was prepared to hand
it right back.

“Yeah, but that’s different,” he said with confidence.

“No, it’s the same thing! If I punched Misty in the
teeth, you would wonder what was wrong with me! Why is it
okay for you but not for me?”

“Guys are different—they just are. I’m supposed to
protect you.”

I could see that
line
of questioning
was
going
nowhere. “But you lost control Zach. You went too far! You
sat there and promised me it would never happen again and
then you went after him a few minutes later.” I couldn’t look
him in the eyes when I said, “How can I trust you won’t do it
again?”

Zach sat up and reached for my hand.
Placing it
squarely over his heart, he said, “Feel that Ruby. The only
thing in my heart is you. I’ll do anything for you, anything. All
I want is for you to love me, to trust me. Give me another
chance. Just don’t leave me now.” His face was painted with
guilt as he begged and pleaded for me not to break up with
him.

“I never wanted to break up with you—I love you,
Zach.” I was about to follow that with a “but”, but he didn’t
give me a chance.
The words were barely out of my mouth
when he pulled me in for the most intense kiss we ever
shared—and that was saying a lot. Needless to say, I forgot
was I was going to say.

I lost myself in him, wondering if this was it. Was this
the night we would take the next step?
We generated so
much heat I was surprised that steam didn’t rise from his wet
clothes.
As he gently lowered me to the ground, my heart
tripled in beats. This
was
it and I was ready.

I held my breath as his lips left mine and started to
trail their way down my neck. I forgot all about the party and
how mad I was at him. All I wanted was for him to get closer
to me than he’d ever been. But no sooner did he start than he
was pulling me back up to sit beside him.

“I need to get you home, Ruby. It’s getting late,” he
said glancing at his watch. “If we head out right now, I’ll get
you home just before curfew.”

Screw curfew!
I wanted to shout it right in his face
and drag him back down to the ground. But I didn’t. I stood
up and took his hand as we walked back to the car.

Once we were back at Rosewood, he gave me a quick
kiss as he headed to his own car. That was it? One quick kiss
and he was gone?
I turned to enter the house, frustrated and
confused.

“Hey, Ruby!” he called and I turned around anxiously,
expecting him to sweep me off my feet with the mother of all
kisses. “You forgot something.” He tossed me the keys to my
car, winked, and drove away.

Men! Did they
ever
make any sense?
5. La La La…I can’t hear you!

I got into bed but I was nowhere even close to sleep.
It was such a strange night that I lay there and petted Coco as
I tried to wrap my brain around everything that happened—
Zach’s meltdown at the party, Misty pushing me into the pool,
our steamy moments at The Hideout.
One minute he was
kissing me and working his way toward something more and
the next he was taking me home. He lost all control at the
party but he had his hormones clearly in check when it came
to me. I knew he loved me, why didn’t he want to do more
than just kiss me?

We needed to talk about it but I didn’t know how to
approach the subject.
I wanted him to know
that I was
ready—ready
to lose my
virginity
to him.
Zach was
so
romantic—I knew it would be the most perfect night of my
life. But I didn’t want to make the first move because it just
felt wrong. He should be the one to set the pace, right?
He
was a boy for crying out loud!
Of course I wanted him to be
respectful and
slow down
if I asked him
to,
but really
shouldn’t he at least be
trying
to get more?

He must be made of steel if he could resist the urge to
go further. But I definitely wasn’t. No one ever made me as
hot and crazy as he did. Things were so much easier over the
summer because at least then I knew the reason why he
wasn’t going for it. How much more of this could I take before
I exploded? Where were the ghosts when I needed them?
I
should bite my tongue for even thinking such a thought. Still,
in a lot of ways, things
were
easier when I was being haunted.
We had something to focus on besides each other.
But now
Scarlet and Levi were gone and I knew they weren’t coming
back. Ghosts were the last thing Zach and I would ever have
to worry about.

Sleep evaded me until late into the night so I wasn’t
surprised to open my eyes and find that I slept way past noon.
Zach would be busy for most of the afternoon but Rachel
would be here soon. Today was her first day of working with
Shelly to start making plans for how to decorate the spare
rooms.
Shelly hoped to have the murder mystery bed and
breakfast up and running by spring and there was a lot of
work to be done. But since it was Rachel’s first day, I figured I
could squeeze in a little time to talk to her about last night.

By the time I finished getting showered and dressed,
Rachel was already hard at work. I found her and Shelly in
one of the rooms discussing color schemes so I slipped away
before they saw me. Shelly and Dad loved Zach—I couldn’t let
them find out about his fits of rage at the party. The last thing
I needed was for them to change their minds about him.
So I
sent Rachel a text telling her that we needed to talk. I forgot
to text her last night so I knew she would be curious to see
how things went. The minute Shelly left her alone, she replied
for me to join her.

“You didn’t text me last night—I was worried about
you,” she scolded, “And Zach, too, of course. But when I got
home around 12:30 he was
already in
bed sleeping so I
figured everything must have turned out okay.”

How could he possibly fall asleep that fast?
I lay
awake for
hours
in
a hormone induced haze
while
he
apparently slept like a baby. Maybe I just didn’t have the
same effect on him that he had on me. Could that be why he
wasn’t making any effort to sleep with me? I thought talking
to Rachel would make me feel better, but suddenly my selfesteem was in the toilet.

“Yeah, we talked about it a little. And then we kissed
and made up.” Could Rachel hear the sadness in my voice? I
certainly could.

“Just kissed?” she teased, “You aren’t holding back any
juicy details now, are you Ruby?”

“No. No juicy details to withhold. All we did was kiss.”
All we
ever
did was kiss. I almost asked for her opinion but I
changed my mind—he
was
her brother after all.
Being best
friends with his sister used to work to my advantage but that
wasn’t always true anymore. Sharing intimate details of our
relationship—or lack thereof—didn’t seem appropriate now.
It was okay when we
couldn’t
do anything but just plain weird
now that he
wouldn’t
. Time to change the subject.

“So I didn’t exactly fall into the pool last night—Misty
pushed me in.” Rachel would forget all about my non-existent
sex life after hearing
that
.

“Shut up!! She didn’t! I knew she would be pissed
about you and Zach but I never thought she would go
that
far!” Wallpaper samples fell from her hand and fluttered to
the floor. “What are you going to do about her?”

Good question. What
was
I going to do about Misty?
What was I going to do about
any
of my problems? My senior
year was going to suck big time.

“I don’t know Rachel. Zach thinks I should just ignore
her, but how can I?
She wants to hook her talons into my
man!” I thought about it for a minute and then added, “What
would you do?”

Rachel twirled her hair
between
her fingers
and
thought about it for a while. “I guess I would just show her
how much you love each other, you know, pretend like she
doesn’t exist. You
do
know my brother would never cheat on
you or anything, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” But it grinded every one of my gears
to know that he’d gone further with Misty than he had with
me. That was something Misty could
never
find out.

“Cheer up, Ruby. Things will work out for you two, I
just know it. Zach’s clearly head over heels for you and in the
end, that’s all you really need.”

She was right. We survived a wretched summer and
came out of it stronger than ever. If I could handle a vengeful
ghost,
I
could
certainly
handle
a
jealous
harpy
of
a
cheerleader.

“Thanks, Rachel. I guess I better let you get back to
work now.”

 

“Okay,” she said as she gathered the samples from the
floor, “If you need to talk, though, I’m here for you.”

I smiled and nodded my head as I left the room. With
several hours to wait until Zach would be done at the shelter,
I needed something to do. But what? Reading was an option,
so I picked up the next book in the Cinnamon Jones mystery
series.
Shelly was an excellent writer but after only three
pages I put it back down. I was full of energy—simply fueled
by
anger toward Misty
and
pent-up frustration
over my
relationship with Zach. I needed to go for a walk.