The Angel Tasted Temptation (15 page)

Then he lifted her up and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of seeds and hauled her towards his truck. She fought against him, pounding on his back with her mermaid legs. All futile efforts.

"Put me down or... I'll tell!"

Yeah, that was good. Scream at him like she was a two-year-old who's only out was running to Momma. Way to assert her new, independent-city-girl persona.

He ignored her and chugged along the sidewalk, her body bouncing against his shoulder, surely leaving bruises and internal organ damage.

Meredith jerked her head backward, managing to loosen the blanket and get it off her face. She looked around for a helpful bystander, a nosy cop—anyone who could get her out of her brother's well-meaning clutches—and saw nothing. It was after midnight in October and people with any sense at all had already gone home. She was on her own. "I said, put me down!"

"Not till you come to your senses. We got a thousand-mile drive back. Plenty of time to think about it." He balanced her with one hand, then lifted the handle on the door and plopped her onto the torn brown and white vinyl seat. He pushed down the lock button, then shut the door. She knew, from experience, that even if she could get the blanket off, she couldn't open the door. Cecil had never gotten around to putting a new handle on the inside passenger door so you either had to climb through the open window like one of the Dukes of Hazzard or navigate over the massive stick shift and out the driver's door.

Considering she was currently a human burrito, neither option, Meredith suspected, would work.

Still, Meredith struggled against the blanket, working her elbows to loosen the rope and nudge it down. A millimeter. Whoa. Some progress. Clearly there was a reason why Angelina Jolie got to play
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
and Meredith carried hot pizzas for a living.

She whipped her head around and saw Travis. Vernon had him down on his knees, arms bent behind his back. Vernon's towering height and seventy-pound advantage, coupled with the element of surprise, had clearly outmatched Travis. In his mouth, Vernon had a roll of gray tape.

Oh no. No telling what could happen now. The only book that had ever been required reading in her house was
1001 Uses for Duct Tape
. Travis had little hope of escape.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?" she screamed at Ray Jr. when he climbed in the cab and immediately put the truck in gear.

"Protecting your virtue."

Still no one around to witness the event. Castle Island was a relatively remote place, a peninsula encapsulated in darkness. As Ray Jr. pulled the truck forward, Travis was lost in the shadows. "You can't leave him there."

"Don't worry. Vernon didn't buy the name-brand tape. Your city boy will get himself loose." Ray Jr. grinned. "Eventually."

"I don't want you interfering in my life or protecting me from anything." She struggled against the blanket, but with her weight on top of the ends, it was impossible to pull it free. When she tried to buck forward and off it, her knees slammed into the dashboard. Pain sent stars shooting through her head. Once her vision cleared, she went back to trying to work the rope down.

"Sorry, sis, but we have to, like it or not." Ray Jr.’s features went from apologetic to enjoyment at getting her back for all those elbows in his ribs.

Meredith turned around, looking for Travis in the inky darkness. Instead, she saw Vernon make a running leap into the back of the pick-up, the roll of duct tape ringing his wrist. He tapped on the glass divider to the cab. "Let's make dust. That ram ain't going nowhere."

"Vernon, I am going to kill you!" Meredith wrestled against the blanket more, but got nowhere.

Ray Jr. stepped on the gas. The tires squealed as he rushed out of the parking lot and down the street, abandoning Travis on the walkway in the shadow of the old fort.

From the back, her middle brother roared with laughter. He'd come in first place in the hog-tying competition at the Indiana State Fair when he was eleven. Apparently, he hadn't lost his touch. Or his penchant for wreaking havoc.

"Why are you two doing this?"

"Cause Momma told us to."

"You are almost thirty years old, Ray Jr. You can stop doing what your Momma tells you."

"Not if I want to eat tomorrow. And you better do what she says, too, or you'll get the hundred-dollar lecture."

Momma's dollar lecture was a quick, five-minute, "do you think we live in a barn, shut the damn door" kind of talk. Ten dollars netted a half-hour talk, about the importance of washing after using the restroom or disinfecting the door handles efficiently. At a hundred dollars, they got the full-blown, all-night affair, filled with lines about "how could you throw your life away" and moaning wails of despair from Martha that her children would be end up homeless, strung out on drugs and wearing the same clothes for more than two days in a row because they'd missed curfew.

"Rebecca needs me. I can't leave."

"Aunt Gloria said she'd be glad to step in and cook," Ray Jr. said.

"Aunt Gloria? She can barely make a peanut butter sandwich."

Ray Jr.'s face bunched up in a grimace. "I know. But she and Momma talked and they made up their minds."

Meredith wanted to scream. This was exactly what she had run from Heavendale to get away from. Other people deciding her life. Other people telling her what was best.

"I'm not going home. Period." Meredith wriggled more against the rope and blanket bindings. This time, she was rewarded with the rope dipping to waist-level, leaving her less of a burrito and more of a messy taco.

"J.C. said—"

"I don't care what J.C. or Momma or Caleb or anyone has to say. I'm done letting other people run my life. Including you." The anger at what they had done bubbled inside her and she gave another jerk against the blanket. This time, it loosened and she was able to push one arm out, then the other, yanking the Fighting Irish off and to the floor. "Now take me back to Travis or I'll tell Momma about that night you took Cecil's truck up to Strawberry Hill."

"You wouldn't."

"I certainly would."

Ray Jr. scowled, still driving. "Mer, I can't let you go. Not till you come to your senses. Momma said you were acting crazy. I mean, you ran off one day. And now, you won't come home. She says you don't even answer your phone and when she does talk to you, you say crazy things about how it's over with Caleb."

"It
is
over with Caleb.''

"I thought you loved him."

Meredith let out a sigh. This was going nowhere. Why did everyone in her family think they knew her better than she knew herself? "You know that pet rabbit you used to have?"

"You mean Whitey?"

"Yeah. You had him for years. Fed him, took him out of his cage and pet him once in a while."

"Even showed him at the 4-H Fair a couple years in a row. Whitey got a blue ribbon one year."

"Then he died, remember? And you buried him out back and never got another rabbit. Why?"

"Well, cause I don't really like rabbits. I like dogs. At least you can teach 'em tricks."

"Exactly."

Ray Jr. took a left, sending Vernon swaying in the back of the truck. "What the hell does that have to do with Caleb?"

"You kept feeding Whitey and taking care of him because he was there. You'd had him for a long time and you didn't know anything else. But then, when he was gone, you realized what you were missing out on by having just a rabbit and not trying any other animals."

Ray Jr. scratched his head with one hand, leaving the other on the steering wheel. Cecil's truck bumped along the road, its shaky exhaust leaking fumes everywhere it went. "Meredith, it's late and I'm tired. What are you saying? You don't want a pet rabbit? Or is there some deeper-meaning crap here I'm supposed to get?"

Meredith let out a gust of air. Ray Jr., as much as he tried, was like all the rest of them. He didn't understand her and he never would. "Never mind."

"Well, you can deal with whatever the hell it is you're talking about later. We're supposed to hold onto you until you're home and in your Miss Holstein costume."

"I am not putting that thing on." She shuddered at the thought of the black-and-white cow print outfit. "Ever."

"You have a contract. J.C. showed it to me."

"I don't care. I told him I resigned and I had to go out of town—"

"And he told you he needed his Miss Holstein at the Tractor Pull this Saturday." Ray Jr. pushed the brim of his ball cap up a little higher on his forehead. "Who's gonna ride on the front of Big Green?" he asked, referring to the giant tractor that led the Bovines-n-Beans Parade each year.

"Annie Wilson can do it. She was last year's Miss Holstein." And looked better in the cow costume, too. Annie had filled it out in ways Meredith never would.

"Everybody needs you, Meredith. You can't stay here forever."

Guilt washed over her. They always needed her, as if she was the one in the family that everyone had pinned their hopes on. The donkey at the never-ending family birthday party.

But it was her turn now, and she refused to feel guilty anymore. "Rebecca needs me too, Ray Jr.," Meredith said. "And
I
need some time away from Heavendale."

Ray Jr. didn't say anything else on the long ride to Rebecca's house and didn't slow down enough for Meredith to clamber out of the window. She was stuck, riding along in Cecil's truck, waiting for an opportunity to escape. It came too late, when he parallel parked the truck between Aunt Gloria's and Rebecca's. She climbed out of the window, refusing Ray Jr.'s offer to open the door for her.

"Are you going back to get Travis?" she asked her brothers.

Vernon chuckled as he climbed out of the back and leaped onto the pavement. "Eventually."

"You two need to take care of what you did. If you don't, I won't go home with you." She crossed her arms over her chest. "And if you try to kidnap me, I'll scream holy hell the whole way back to Indiana."

"Oh, all right. Let me grab a snack and then we'll head back over there." Vernon tossed a nod at Ray Jr. "You got her?"

Ray Jr. nodded and watched his younger brother lope up the stairs and into Aunt Gloria's house. "I don't get it, Meredith. I thought marrying Caleb and being Miss Holstein was everything you wanted."

She looked at Ray Jr., his hat in his hands, standing on the concrete sidewalk, in his thick-soled work-boots and faded Levi's 505s. He was the mirror image of their father, from his sun-kissed skin and his sandy hair to his view of the world. To Ray Jr., the smell of freshly cut hay and the sweat of a hard day's work were the essence of heaven.

"I want more than that," Meredith said. "I want something that makes me feel alive. I'm finding that here, in this city."

He studied her for a long time, then shook his head. "I dunno, Meredith. Seems to me you were pretty alive back in Indiana. And you could breathe a hell of a lot easier there, too."

"I didn't fit in there," she said. "And I didn't realize how much I was missing until I got away from Heavendale."

"Seems to me that's running away from your troubles, 'stead of facing them. Doesn't make them go away. You think stirring up a hornet's nest is gonna make things better?" Without waiting for an answer, he plopped his hat back on his head and headed up the stairs and into the house.

Leaving Meredith holding the blanket and wondering whether she should have done what Ray Jr. did.

And just got a damned dog instead.

Travis's Can't-Forget-About-Her-If-You-Try Oyster Stew

32 oysters, shucked (reserve juice)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1-1/2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

Salt and pepper

Cayenne pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon chives, chopped

That woman has your blood—and everything else inside you—running at a fever pitch. Time to eat something that's simmering as hot as you are. Maybe it'll take your mind off her.

Yeah, right. Might be better off throwing yourself face-first into a glacier.

Put the oysters, their liquid and the lemon juice in a pan and cook for two minutes over low heat. In a separate pan (hey, the extra dishes are something to do while you're trying not to think about her), heat the milk and cream, just to a boil. Add to the oysters.

Season with salt, pepper and cayenne, then sprinkle with chives. Eat immediately, preferably while watching a good, manly boxing match. Avoid any show with blond women who have pretty blue eyes and making love on their minds.

For the second time in a week, Travis found himself down on the ground with a throbbing headache and wondering if dying might be the easiest way to solve the problems in his life.

It would certainly be cheaper than therapy.

And a lot easier to come by than a pocketknife and a third arm.

He wriggled against the duct tape binding his arms together for the twentieth time since Meredith's psychotic brother had hogtied him and left him for the seagulls, or worse, tomorrow morning's tourists. With no one around at this late hour, and the only sound coming from a biting night wind off the water, Travis was left to his own devices.

He tried to rub his ankles together and loosen the tape that bound his legs together but got nowhere. His wrists had about a centimeter of wiggle room.

Travis twisted to the left and managed to get his cell phone unclipped from his belt. He jerked and flipped, nudging the phone until he could get it around and press one of the speed dial buttons with his nose. He aimed for Kenny but ended up with his mother.

"Travis? Why are you calling me this late, dear?" she said, answering on the first ring, which meant she probably hadn't been asleep.

"Sorry, Ma. I was ..." He couldn't say he'd dialed the wrong number. "I was just thinking of you."

"Is everything all right? You're not in jail, are you?"

There was his mother, always thinking the best of him. In the background, he heard the theme music for
Law & Order
coming from her wide-screen TV. "No, I'm not in jail."