Eternal: More Love Stories With Bite (27 page)

"Cheap?" I said cheerfully.

"Immature," he said, and kissed my hand. "You looked like
the
sexiest woman
in
the world."

"Well, in fairness,
I
am
the sexiest woman in the world."

"And you're always right."

"You are so brilliant to recognize that."

He
helped me
to
my feet and got handsy settling my dress back around me comfortably. Then he held me in place and stared down at me for a long moment.

"Am I really sexier than Gloriana?"
I
asked.

And that got me a slow,
very
sexy smile. "Sorry,
don't
think
I know anyone by that name."

And
then
he took off his
suit
jacket, wrapped it around my shoulders, and walked
me
back up
to
the party.

Thief

Jeri Smith-Ready

Everything's
better on the road.

Take rainbows. The ones up in the sky just sorta sit there. But the ones on the highway—spiking up through the water tossed by the tires? They dance and shimmer
and
hurry along with us. They're going places.

I leaned my elbows on the barrier between the school bus stairs and the front seat, staring at the rainbow following the silver minivan ahead of us.

One, two, three, four, five,
six ...

The bus peeled off at the exit. I kept counting, watching the rainbow, twisting a lock of my hair, sticky with curling gel.
Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

I craned my neck, but the rainbow disappeared from sight.
I
sank back into my seat, my stomach heavy. An even number of seconds meant good luck, but an odd number? Well, it would've been better
if
I'd never seen the rainbow at all.

As the bus turned onto our road, something hit the back of my head, too big to be a spitball. I pulled the crumpled paper from my thick blonde curls,
which
had gone frizzy in the South Carolina humidity. I figured it was another nasty note calling me Traveller trash or Gypsy whore. Country folk kids weren't real creative.

It wasn't a note.
It
was a ten-dollar bill. Okay, maybe they were getting more creative.

The bus clanged with my classmates' cackles. I glanced at the driver, who kept her eyes on the road. Yep. Everyone—teachers, principals, cops—
looks
the other way when country folk harass Travellers. They figure we got it coming.

I turned to scan the crowd of smug faces. That stupid sophomore Eric Scheier was grinning at me from four rows back. I wanted to give him the finger, but I knew that would
be
the moment the bus driver would miraculously regain her sight.

So I gave Eric my coldest, meanest, most brain-splitting vampire glare. Which would've knocked him on his butt, had I actually been a vampire.

Eric put
up
his hands all fake innocent, and laughed some more.

The bus jerked to a stop at my corner. It was "my" corner because I was the only one
in
our Traveller group who went to the public
high
school. Heck,
I
was one of maybe half a dozen out of hundreds who went to any high school.

I scooped up my bag, then stalked back to Eric. I leaned over and smoothed the ten-dollar bill across his chest. "You dropped this, honey."

He
ripped his gaze up from my boobs to my face. Beside
him,
his girlfriend, Sally, scowled at his horndog eyes.

"Cassie, you oughta
thank
me," he said. "I'm saving you the trouble of stealing it."

I leaned over further, whispering in his ear. "How many times I gotta tell you?" I slid the bill up and tucked it into the top of his polo shirt. "We ain't. All. Thieves."

"Miss O'Riley, you get off this bus!" the driver called. "I got a schedule to keep."

"Sure
thing."
I picked up my bag, dropping
Eric's
wallet inside, and strode off the bus, back
into
my world.

It's
true what
I
said, that not
all Irish
Travellers are thieves. Thanks to the media and a few big arrests by the feds (I miss you, Granddad!), people think
all
any of us
do
is run scams
and
pick pockets.

But it's not totally true. Travellers just have a bad reputation. One we O'Rileys aim to live up to.

The
sun
was shining even hotter now, like it was trying to one-up the rain.
I
sighed with relief to get under the shade
of
the oak trees, even though the
Spanish
moss was dripping like crazy
on
the sidewalk.

Behind me
I
heard one of my favorite sounds in the world—the engine of an Audi S-4. I pulled back my shoulders and added extra swing to my
hips.

"Hey there, darlin'," drawled the honey-soaked voice. "You need a date tonight?"

I lifted my chin and went full-on Southern Belle. "Ah'm sorry, sir, but I'm spoken for on this fine evening."

"How spoken for?"

"A fair young gentleman has secured my hand in marriage."

"Does this boy know how lucky he is?"

"I don't know." I stopped and turned. "Does he?"

Liam Flynn grinned up at me, halting my heart. "Get in."

Inside the car, the air-conditioning was cranked up, but that wasn't what made me shiver as I wrapped my arms around Liam's neck and kissed him like we'd been apart for a year instead of a day.

A horn honked behind us. Liam waved at the rearview mirror and put the car back into drive. "Sorry you had to take the bus again."

"I'd rather you make your PT than give me a ride home." I dug out Eric's wallet. "Besides, it was good profit."

"How much?"

I opened the wallet. "About a hundred, plus credit cards." I slipped the wallet into the compartment between the seats. "Can you make Eric's life miserable?"

"With just a few clicks of the mouse." Liam waggled his finger in the air. His hand trembled more than usual, but sometimes after physical therapy he was extra tired. "Should I give Eric the Moldavian Heiress routine or the Do-Not-Fly- List treatment?"

"Whatever you're in the mood for."

"I can't have what I'm in the mood for." He gave me a sly smile as he threaded his fingers through mine. "Not for two years."

I banged the back of my head against the headrest. "Sometimes I don't want to wait one more day. It's torture." I pulled his hand to rest on my thigh. "Now I know why most Traveller girls get married when they're fourteen."

"You're the one who wanted to wait until we finished school."

"I'll be old before I finish. After I graduate I'm going to college and then med school. And then maybe law school. Or business school, I can't decide." I stroked the back of Liam's hand. "If we got married now, I could concentrate in class instead of thinking about how much I want to see you naked."

"No, because then you'd be distracted by
memories
of me naked. Horrible flashbacks. Like nightmares, except you'd be awake."

I smacked his shoulder. "Don't even joke."

"I'm just sayin', to prepare you, for one day." He pulled his hand out of mine and smoothed the right leg of his Catholic school uniform khakis. "It ain't pretty."

"Pull over."

"Huh?"

"To the curb. Now."

He did as I asked, and I jammed the gear shift into park. Then I grabbed his thin shoulders and brought my face right up to his.

"You've always been the most beautiful boy I've ever known. You always will be. Okay?"

His gaze slid off me, like he couldn't bear the truth in my eyes. "You mean on the inside, right?"

"No!" I took his face in my hands and pressed my forehead to his. "You got any idea how late I lie awake at night, remembering every little inch of your face?" My fingertips traced his cheekbones. "I play back every kiss in my head in slow motion, again and again until
I
know I'll never forget it."

His sea-blue eyes searched mine, like he was looking for
the
teeniest chink in my faith. "Cass, I gotta tell you something."

"Go ahead."

"You gotta get out of my lap first."

I sat back in the passenger seat, knocking my knee against his cane. "Did your therapy go okay?"

"It wasn't just PT this time. I saw the doctor. It's not good."

"But you've been doing your exercises."

"I know, and if I weren't it'd be worse. But he says—" Liam hesitated, running his tongue, then his teeth, over his bottom lip before speaking to the dashboard instead of me. "He says by the time I'm twenty-one I'll probably need crutches, and when I'm twenty-five—" He swallowed. "I might be in a wheelchair."