Dangerous Lies (14 page)

“See?” I said knowingly, then added with disgust, “Of course
she
took the fall for it.” Just like it had been
my
fault when Trigger’s Mountain Dew found its way onto my face. Every female who crossed paths with Trigger seemed to be at fault. Funny how that kept happening.

“He has a reputation for a nasty temper.” There was a muted quality to Chet’s voice. Part discomfort, part warning. “And he’s physical.”

“With girls?”

“With everyone. Maybe with that teacher. I don’t know the facts. Just watch yourself with him.” He eyed the clock. “I should get you home. Carmina’s going to be pacing the doorway with a shotgun.”

I made a pouty face, but he obviously had great self-control, because seemingly immune to my charms, he drove us back to Carmina’s, parking in the drive at eleven-forty-five on the dot. The downstairs lights were on, but I didn’t see Carmina’s prowling silhouette through the curtains.

“Thanks for the root beer float,” I said.

“Any time.”

A notable pause followed.

Chet’s eyes found mine, and the hot look in them made me wish I hadn’t allowed myself to be alone with him. It was dark in the cab of the Scout, and while the bench seat had seemed roomy every other time I’d ridden beside him, it now felt just the opposite. He sat so close, I could feel heat radiating off his body. I could hear his slow, deep breathing. He rested his arm on the seat back, his hand draped inches from my shoulder. I was hypersensitive to the sweet, spicy scent of him, and even though he wasn’t touching me, for one whirlwind moment I thought he might. I felt tipsy and nervous, my nerve endings electrified with anticipation.

And then I saw Reed’s face. It popped into the back of my mind, and the image was so real, I almost believed he could see me.

I shoved out of the Scout, practically jumping onto the drive, feeling spooked.

Smiling as naturally as I could under the circumstances, I told Chet, “I’d better get the rest of this float in the freezer before it melts.”

I didn’t look at his face. I didn’t want to see that slow heat again, and be forced to speculate what it meant. I already knew, but I wasn’t going to give it another moment’s thought. I had to remember I wasn’t Stella Gordon, and I wasn’t a foster kid who had a future in Thunder Basin or with Chet. I was Estella Goodwinn, and Reed Winslow was my boyfriend.

I dashed up the porch steps, thinking Carmina had better not be on the other side of the door, ready to have words with me. I couldn’t handle it tonight. I wanted to clear my head of Chet and focus on what was important: my next trip to the library. Reed was out there somewhere, and he was trying to contact me.

I was inside the house, with my back pressed to the door, before I heard Chet reverse down the drive. An image of his blue eyes, deep with yearning, drifted into my mind. He’d been easy on the eyes from the first moment I’d seen him, but I’d never found him as attractive as I had in the cab of the Scout tonight. I didn’t want this complicated attraction. I didn’t know what to do with it.

I wasn’t the kind of girl who let a guy slip easily under my skin. I was in control here, dammit.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel shaken by Chet.

“THERE’S A FUND-RAISER AT THE
church tonight, if that sort of thing interests you.” It was the following afternoon, Saturday, and Carmina stood at the kitchen sink, plunging her hands into soapy water as she scrubbed barbeque off our lunch dishes.

“What kind of fund-raiser?” I purposefully kept my tone bland, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of believing she’d piqued my interest when she hadn’t.

“To aid the women’s shelter.”

“More details? Is it a car wash? Are they selling popcorn? Overpriced candy bars?” In past summers, my basketball team had held weekend car washes when we needed to raise money. It was the first thing I thought of when I heard “fund-raiser.”

“Oh, I suppose you’d call it a carnival,” she said, using her forearm to nudge a few white hairs that had strayed from her headband off her face. “There’ll be a ring toss, cake walk, corn-shucking contest, and that game where you throw darts at balloons.”

“Will I know anyone?” I half wondered aloud.

“Reckon you will. Pastor Lykins asked several of the youth to help run booths. Plenty of them play in the softball league.” She eyed me over her shoulder. “I imagine Chet Falconer will be there, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“I’m not getting at anything.” And I wasn’t. I had mixed feelings about seeing Chet again so soon. Last night before bed, I’d put him out of my mind, determined to end whatever complicated feelings I was developing for him. I wanted to keep our relationship simple. Friend-simple. Everything was fine until I woke in the dark, my body hot and clammy. And aching. I knew I couldn’t control my dreams, but this particular one, involving Chet, the bed of his Scout, and his strong,
very
capable hands, seemed like a betrayal of Reed, and my resolve, just the same.

Frowning, Carmina said, “Don’t think it slipped my attention he brought you home after curfew last night.”

“I don’t have a curfew. And are you seriously going to have a heart attack over fifteen minutes?”

Ignoring me, she said, “Fund-raiser starts at seven. I promised Pastor Lykins I’d get there early to help set up. I’m sure he’d appreciate an extra hand, if you decide to come.”

“Not really my thing,” I said, yawning widely, which was rude, but I needed to make my point.

“Suit yourself.”

And that was that.

But when six thirty rolled around and Carmina was backing down the driveway, I had a
what the hell
moment, grabbed my purse, and dashed down the porch steps. I felt like an idiot chasing her partway down the road before she thought to look in the rearview mirror. She braked, and I hoisted myself into the truck, heaving breath.

“What?” I panted in response to her arched eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll die from boredom and be out of your hair for good.”

“Or maybe you’ll have yourself a good time,” she said sweetly.

I gave her a cynical look. She smiled, self-satisfied.

The church parking lot was full. Carmina parked on a side street, and I helped her unload boxes of lollipops, gumballs, balloons, and air pumps, and a couple of bottles of drugstore wine for the wine pull. As we carted the boxes across the church’s back lawn, we passed booths advertising pie throwing, face painting, and a myriad of carnival games. There was even a dunk tank. The sun blazed above the trees, the heat broiling my scalp. Sweat trickled down my spine.

I closed my eyes. It felt like summer . . . it just didn’t
feel
like summer. Right now I should have been sunbathing at Tory’s pool. Or helping her plan her guest list for her birthday party. She turned eighteen next Wednesday. I wondered if she still thought about me. Of course she did. We’d been best friends for years. Even if she believed I was dead, I would linger in the back of her mind, making her cry at random moments.

I squeezed the bridge of my nose, which was starting to tingle painfully. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t keep going back. I was beginning to understand why Deputy Price had told me to start fresh in Thunder Basin. It hurt too much to keep one foot planted in the past. I wanted to hold on to it, but the only thing Philly had to offer me was danger or, worse, death. Keeping it close, pretending it was still an option, was a fantasy. A dangerous fantasy.

I grabbed Carmina’s wine bottles and took them to Pastor Lykins, who bustled around the wine pull table, adding tags to the bottles already lined up in neat rows.

“Hello there, Stella,” he said, bumping his sunglasses up his nose. He was one of those men who didn’t have the face for sunglasses—his was blandly cherubic, and sunglasses looked out of place. They made him look like he was trying too hard. But the rest of his attire was exactly what I would have expected. Dockers, a white shirt, and scuffed loafers. His face shone with perspiration, and the underarms of his shirt bore damp circles. He shook my hand, but his eyes went past me, locking on Carmina. “Carmina sent you to give these to me? I’ll have to seek her out as soon as I finish these tags and thank her.”

I turned to go, thinking I’d browse the games before the carnival got under way, when I saw several girls my age clustered around a booth I hadn’t noticed before. The booth was wrapped in red paper and decorated with large, heart-shaped cutouts. A boom box set on the window’s ledge blared a female voice singing enthusiastically, “This kiss, this kiss! Unstoppable. This kiss, this kiss!”

“Who sings this song?” I asked one of the girls at the back of the group.

She stared at me like I couldn’t be serious. “
Uhh
, Faith Hill. It’s the song ‘This Kiss.’ ” She watched me like she was waiting for something to click, but I’d never heard of the song. “Get it? ‘This Kiss.’ It’s a kissing booth,” she finished impatiently.

Before I could ask if
she
was serious, a wave of squeals rose up from the girls closest to the booth. A woman was writing names on a poster tacked to the booth’s window.

“Trigger McClure!” one girl read aloud as the woman printed his name, followed by the seven o’clock time slot.

“Chet Falconer!” another said giddily.

I nudged the girl beside me a second time. “So this is, like, a real kissing booth. With actual kissing.” It was more a declaration of incredulity than a question. Was this politically correct? Judging by the donations jar, the church was actually condoning the idea of buying, well, kisses. There were so many things messed up about this, I couldn’t even start to list them.

“
Uhh
, yeah, obviously,” the girl said. “The guy who raises the most money at the end of the night is crowned Mr. Hot Lips. He gets a tiara and a sash and everything. It’s really funny. Chet or Trigger will win. Obviously. I mean, look at the other guys who volunteered,” she said as the woman added the final two names to the poster. “Donovan Pippin and Theodore LeMahieu?” The girl wrinkled her nose in distaste.

Just then I saw Chet’s yellow Scout rumble down the street, and decided it just wouldn’t do to pass up an opportunity to tease him. Practically skipping across the yard, I met up with him on the sidewalk.

“Kissing booth?” I said sweetly, keeping step with his long, easy stride. He looked casual and comfortable in jeans, grass-stained boots, and a navy T-shirt that highlighted those striking jewel-blue eyes.

He grinned. “Keeping tabs on me?”

“Hard not to. When they wrote your name on the roster, girls within a ten-mile radius swooned and fainted flat on their backs.”

“But not you?”

“I don’t kiss friends,” I quipped.

He gave a snort, but the playful glint in his eyes dimmed a little, and I regretted that I might have hurt his feelings. Still. I had to make my intentions clear. I wasn’t going to give him false hope. Or encourage any more behavior like the kind he’d displayed in the Scout last night.

“Anyway,” I added, hoping to repair his ego, “a kissing booth takes the serendipity out of the moment. I’m against them on principle. I mean, is there anything less romantic than paying for a kiss? It should happen when the time is right. It shouldn’t be forced. It’s the difference between kissing someone for the first time in Vegas . . . and Paris,” I said in a burst of inspiration.

“Have you even been to Paris?” he grunted, shifting two crates of glass milk bottles in his arms.

For one half-moment, my heart raced wildly. I thought I’d said something that could jeopardize my cover. But no. The analogy was harmless. You didn’t have to travel to Paris to know it was a million times more romantic than Vegas.

Even though Estella Goodwinn had. Traveled to Paris, that is.

“You know what I mean,” I said.

“Did you happen to see what time slot they gave me?”

“Eight o’clock. All eyes, er,
lips
, will be on you.” I dug in my purse for a tube of lip balm and tucked it in the front pocket of his tee. “A friendly deed for a friend in need. Halfway through your shift, you’ll thank me.”

He dug out the tube and read the label—crème de menthe flavored. “For real? This is as close as I’m getting to touching your lips tonight?” He wagged his head pathetically and heaved a sigh of disappointment.

I grinned. We were back to our old routine of kidding around and feeling easy with each other. This was what I wanted. It felt safe. “Just call me Little Miss Virgin Lips.”

“At least stop by the booth and say hi—and donate a couple bucks. Proceeds go to new toys for the women’s shelter.”

“You just want my money so you can be the next Mr. Hot Lips.”

I expected Chet to respond with a wisecrack of his own, but he stopped in his tracks. It was like he’d walked into a wall. His eyes fastened on something across the yard. A little color crept up his neck, and he smoothed a hand through his hair, almost like he was worried it might be sticking up. It seemed to take him a second to breathe.

“Chet?”

He jerked, like he’d forgotten I was there. He smiled, but his eyes were faraway and moody. “Yeah. Sorry. You were saying?”