Robin in the Hood (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 1) (18 page)

“A little to the left, my dear,” the Colonel said, leading her directly to where we stood.

“Happy birthday, darlin’!” Lorraine gave me a gummy, toothless smile as they stopped, holding out the cake. “I made this special today, just for you—from scratch. It’s my great-grandma’s recipe with real buttermilk and vanilla bean.”

I choked down my embarrassment and accepted the cake, every muscle in my body twisting. Oh Lord, how do I tell them all the truth? They’d gone to such trouble!

“Creek,” I whispered through my teeth, shaking my head, “there’s been a huge mistake. I was born on—”

In that second, I caught sight of my dad out of the corner of my eye. He was still sitting near the bonfire in the chair by Granny’s wagon. But when his eyes met mine, he hung his head.

Like he’d just gotten caught red-handed.

“Robin,” Creek whispered back, “it
i
s
your birthday.” He stole a glance at my dad, too. “Maybe the whole thing about May was—”

I held up my hand to stop him.

“Got it
,
” I snapped, staring down at the burning candles beneath my nose. “Yet another lie—”

I couldn’t help myself; I began to tremble all over. And to be honest, there was nothing I wanted more in that moment than to walk up to my dad and take a swing, or at the very least, slam Lorraine’s double-decker homemade cake right into his face—

But I couldn’t.

Because as I looked around at everyone, their expressions so warm and genuine, I was completely overwhelmed by the kindness in their eyes. Yet it also forced me to admit one very brutal fact:

No one—absolutely no one—in my entire life had ever given me a birthday party like this unless they’d been paid extremely well by my father to do so. And after all those long, lonely years, it turned out they weren’t even celebrating my real birthday after all.

Tears slid down my face, both from a gratitude to the people at Turtle Shore and my shame at learning the truth.

“There, there now sweetie!” Lorraine reached out a hand to brush the tears aside, as if she’d memorized the contours of my cheeks. “You’re gonna put out yer candles if you keep that up. C’mon now—blow!”

I shook my head and motioned for Dooley to come over and help me. He trotted up, his face the very picture of hope.

“Make a wish,” he said excitedly. “Granny told me it’s your birthday!”

My breath halted as I tried to allow that information to truly sink in.

Then I nodded and closed my eyes for a wish.

D
e
a
r
L
o
r
d
, I prayed from the bottom of my heart—

I snuck a peek at my dad again, only to see him turn his face and study the ground.

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“I’m really sixteen today?”

I leaned back against the tree that held our platform, snuggled halfway inside a sleeping bag Creek had provided, still trying to wrap my head around that idea. Before we’d left Turtle Shores for the night, I’d dutifully taken a piece of cake over to my dad to spoon feed him, glaring the whole time. But did he answer any of my questions about the actual date of my birth?

Hell no.

Like always, he played the slick innocent, suddenly unable to talk between chews due to what he called “duress.” Or as he said in his slobbery, tongue-twisted way, “doo-weth.” So after ordering him not to give Granny and the Colonel too much trouble for taking care of him in his trailer, I swiped a lick of frosting and landed a sticky smack on his forehead, cussing under my breath as I wished him good night.

“So what
is the date today, anyway,” I pestered Creek on the tree stand, hoping for a more honest answer. “March, April?”

With all of the craziness lately, I’d completely lost track. I squinted at Creek in the moonlight, counting on my fingers the days since my dad’s stroke. “It’s gotta be April by now. But April what—first? Oh my God . . .”

I sank into the sleeping bag in disbelief.

“Don’t tell me I was born on April Fool’s Day—”

Creek kept silent.

And I could’ve kicked him for that. But I pretty much took it to mean a yes.

“Seriously?” I gasped, hugging the sleeping bag up to my nose, as if I could hide from the truth. “Well that explains everything. No wonder my life’s always been such a wreck—”

“Robin,” Creek sighed, interrupting my rant.

He was just a silhouette beneath the moonlight now, like some beautiful phantom whispering secrets to me in the dark.

“Your dad had to protect you. He rescued you from the adoption agency, remember? So that means changing your name, birthdate, social security number. Guess he and I have a few things in common.”

Chills skittered down my back as I thought of all the ways Creek must have guarded Dooley—if that was even their real names. How many times had they headed to the underground bunkers to hide from well-meaning social workers who would’ve split them up? Had they gone so far as to fake their own deaths to avoid the system?

“Creek, tell me something,” I urged, my palms feeling clammy now. I was about to step over a line, and I knew it. “What’s your name? I mean, your real one? Something tells me it isn’t what you go by.”

Creek didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

He seemed like a big shadow cast by a rock.

But we had all night—and I wasn’t about to budge, either.

So I took my best shot.

“I’m Rubina McCracken,” I offered, like a manifesto of truth that I wanted to reign in my life now. “Born April first, sixteen years ago. How’s that for starters?”

I saw Creek shake his head slowly in the dark.

“No. You’re Rubina de Bargona,” he corrected me. “The granddaughter of a Venetian Count. Your dad never got to marry your mom. So legend around here says Granny gave them a gypsy wedding in the woods. But that doesn’t jive with Ohio law, or in Italy either. So technically, you’re still a de Bargona.”

I sat up straight, my mind spinning. I had Venetian blood in my veins? Were these people still rich, or had they squandered everything like my dad? Since I was illegitimate, maybe it didn’t matter.

Just then, I felt something rustle beneath my hand on the platform.

Two stiff pieces of paper. I held them up and tilted them to the moonlight, my eyes straining to distinguish their features.

They were the cards I’d picked out from Granny’s deck in her wagon. The Wheel of Fortune and The Lovers.

“What are these doing here?” I dropped them from my hands as if they’d been on fire. “Did Granny put them on the tree stand to try and voodoo me again—”

I heard Creek chuckle in the dark.

“My guess is it was Dooley,” he replied. “He really wants us to be together.”

Together? I thought. Like boyfriend and girlfriend?

“And to answer your question, my name is Creek. After Stone Cross Creek in Whistler Holler, where my mom grew up. She told me the happiest days of her life were playing in that sparkling water. I want Dooley to have that—to have something beautiful to remember. It’s worth more to me than a thousand Italian aristocrats. So we stay near the lake.”

His silhouette grew closer, and I could feel the warmth of his palm caress my cheek for a moment, and then his lips pressed softly against mine. He leaned back and brushed the hair from my forehead.

“What I just told you, Robin, you can count on—no matter what. See, I don’t change every minute like your dad. ’Cause I ain’t ashamed of where I come from, or where I’m going.”

“Where are you—we—going?” I asked, my face flushing at my own boldness.

“Right now?” he replied. “Fountain Square. It’s got the biggest banks. And there’s one that has sloppy surveillance between two-thirty and three am, when security changes shifts. The new guy that just got hired likes to text a little too much. I’ve had my eye on him for months.”

I felt my throat tighten.

That wasn’t what I meant at all—our next hit. What I wanted to know is where we were going. As in, if there really is such a thing as a
w
e
.

And if I’d learned anything at Pinnacle, it’s that fortune doesn’t favor the weak. Only the strong get what they want, so it was time to ramp it up.

“Are we together Creek?” I asked, picking up the two cards that I’d dropped on the platform. I studied them carefully, hoping to prevent him from reading my gaze in the moonlight. Inside though, my heart was racing. What if he said no?

But I didn’t have time to fret over his answer.

Because I felt Creek slip the cards from my hand.

“Hmm,” he mumbled, resting his gaze on The Lovers.

Then he lifted the card and traced its edge slowly down the curve of my cheek and along my jaw to my chin, tenderly following the stretch of my throat. Hesitating, he descended to the swell of my breasts and lingered there, enveloping my lips in a kiss.

Not just any kiss.

T
h
a
t
kind of kiss!

With the moon behind him, all I could see was his shadow as if he’d become a specter. But the warmth of is lips told me he was for real. And despite the darkness, I felt like my whole body had burst into light.

Creek broke away, even though I craved so much more—

“If we weren’t together, Robin,” he said softly, “I wouldn’t be
here right now.”

How is it possible to soar without ever leaving the knotty wood slats of our tree stand?

But inside, I felt as if my heart had sprouted wings.

Wheee! I thought, my lips curling into a smile.

And I knew Creek was telling the truth, in a way that I’d never really trusted with my dad, because in spite of all of our bizarre twists and turns lately, he didn’t play charades with my emotions. What you saw is what you got. Which is why my heart sank when I heard him clear his throat, as though there was something he needed to clarify.

“But if there’s going to be any kind of we,” Creek said, surprising me by opening up the flap of my sleeping bag and snuggling inside, “I want you to do something for me.”

He wrapped his strong arm around my waist, and his whole body felt hard and warm, yet more like home than anything I’d ever known. I could feel his soft breath, moist upon my neck as he nuzzled even closer, as tight as a glove. His contours were a perfect fit—a piece of a puzzle that I’d never realized was missing before, but that now made me feel more whole. Yet deep inside, there was a part of me that still struggled a little. I’d never for a second wanted to be one of those pathetic, needy girls, like Laura Ritter, who was always waiting for somebody else to complete her while her own heart bled her dry. Girls like that always lost themselves in relationships, becoming nothing more than sad ghosts. So I decided to rib Creek a little, just to keep myself in the driver’s seat.

“So what is it you want me to do?” I taunted, giving him a sly poke in the stomach. I shimmied my hips a little, trying to act sexy. “How about a full striptease for the guard in the lobby this time, so you can bust that bank in Cincy?”

Creek grabbed my hand—hard. Startled, I yelped a little, now all too aware that he was in no mood for kidding when it came to matters of the heart.

“Robin,” he tightened his arm around my waist like a vise. “I want you . . . to forgive your dad.”

I felt my whole body tense up, the angles of my bones digging into the tree platform.

“You can’t truly be with me, or anybody else, until you do. ’Cause that anger, it kills something in people. It’s what killed my mom.”

I felt a trickle slowly slip down my cheek—

A total surprise to me, since I had no idea that my eyes had welled up. I gritted my teeth, willing it to stop and biting into my own flesh so Creek wouldn’t hear. But who was I kidding? He was so close, he could probably feel my tears slide against his own skin.

And he just let them fall.

In the dark silence, in that eerie space he always seemed to know how to provide in order to let me be me. Or at least, to try and
f
i
n
d
me.

And a part of myself was a bit grateful for his quiet wisdom. But another part of me wanted to hit him.

How dare Creek accuse me of being bitter, when he knows perfectly well he’d slit the throat of his mom’s old boyfriend in two seconds flat if he got the chance?