One Week (Stolen Kiss #0.5) (7 page)

T
he only way I was going to learn how to get around Asheville was to go out and explore it for myself. I couldn’t rely on Aunt Lydia or Ashton for rides, and I was determined not to end up like I had the night before: stuck someplace and waiting to be rescued. I hated feeling like a damsel in distress. Jude had already helped me twice already, and it would not happen again.

Armed with the GPS app on my phone, I set out to explore Aunt Lydia’s neighborhood.

Once again, I was struck by how similar to each other the homes looked, and how much they reminded me of my old neighborhood in Willowbrook, where I had grown up with my old friends: across the street from Avery and next door to Elliott. In the summer, we would spend every afternoon riding our bikes or pretending to camp under the big tree in Elliott’s backyard. My room had been my own, the walls covered with my drawings and notes from Avery and Elliott.

Then my dad’s bank went national and everything changed.

I caught sight of a shirt hanging from the same tree at that corner house again, and I slowed to a stop to study it. It could have been a shirt that was hung and forgotten, maybe leftover from a yard sale. But I could have sworn that the shirt I’d seen before was red plaid. That day, a blue button-up shirt hung from the tree branch, the sleeves flapping back and forth in the wind.

My gaze focused just beyond the tree and I saw a familiar dusty gray truck parked in the driveway of the house. The hood was up and as I watched, a figure emerged from the other side of the truck, wiping his hands on a dirty rag.

Jude Westmore. Shirtless.

Lightly muscled arms led up to a pair of broad shoulders that met a chiseled chest and abs. He had the kind of tan you got from working outside in the sun. The tattoo on his arm was a band, some kind of tribal design that wrapped around a nicely shaped bicep.

I leaned forward, my hands gripping the steering wheel until my fingers started to tingle.

BEEP!

I jumped back, slamming the back of my head against my seat and pulling my hands up away from the steering wheel. My gaze darted back toward the gray truck, hoping by some miracle he hadn’t heard me accidentally blare my car horn at him.

But no such luck. Jude straightened, shielding his eyes with one hand as he looked directly at me. Would I look too much like a stalker if I sped away? Did he remember that this was my car?

I lifted one hand and gave a small wave. I didn’t know what else to do.

Jude stuck the rag into his back pocket and walked across the dry grass toward me. I pressed the button to roll down the window, growing light-headed as he neared me. It took everything in me not to stare at the lines of his abs.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I gestured at my steering wheel. “Just out for a drive.”

“Doesn’t that require actually driving and not parking?”

Heat flushed up my neck, “I stopped for a minute.”

“In front of my house,” he said.

His chest gleamed with a light sheen of sweat.
Don’t look at his chest
, I told myself.
Don’t look at his chest.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t know it was your house. I was looking at the shirt.” I pointed at the tree, though I couldn’t keep my eyes off his chest.

Jude didn’t look at the tree, but kept his eyes on me. “You keep showing up everywhere,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I might think you were stalking me.”

I snorted. “I have better things to do with my time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a city to explore.”

Jude didn’t lift his hands from the doorframe. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll find something to look at. You guys have lots of tourist traps here, right? Maybe I’ll go get lost at Biltmore.”

“You ever been to Biltmore?” he asked.

“I’ve never been to Asheville before,” I told him. “This isn’t exactly at the top of my family’s vacation destinations.”

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up lost in the mountains,” he said. “Some parts of the country are a little more rugged than others.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have a tour guide on hand.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I could do it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You want to go tour around Asheville with me?”

“Are you inviting me?”

We stared at each other for a long moment. A car drove by, slowing down as it passed so the driver could look at us before he moved on. I thought about what my mom would say, that Jude looked like an unemployed miscreant and I should stay far away. I thought about what my dad would say, that I owed Jude repayment for changing my tire and giving me a ride home.

But it was what Mark would say that made up my mind:
Do whatever you think you wouldn’t do.

“You need to change if you’re going with me,” I said, wrinkling my nose at his greasy jeans. “I don’t want oil all over my seat. And put on a shirt.”
Before I go crazy trying not to look at you
, I added silently.

I expected Jude to back out and tell me to go on without him. But he nodded and then turned back toward the house. I sat in my car, tapping the steering wheel as I waited. What was I doing? Was he really going to tour Asheville with me?

Just when I had decided that Jude was playing a joke on me and that I should drive off, the door opened again and Jude emerged, this time wearing dark jeans and a clean white T-shirt. He had brushed his hair and pulled it back into a neat ponytail.

I raised an eyebrow.

“What?” he asked once he was settled into the passenger seat.

“We’re really going to do this?” I asked. “Go to Biltmore Estate. Together.”

Jude shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

I gestured back at his house as a breeze lifted the strands of hair around my face. “Weren’t you working on your truck?”

“I’m always working on my truck,” he said. “It’s a work in progress.”

Still, I didn’t put the car into drive.

“If you don’t want me to go with you, I won’t go.” Jude put his hand on the door handle. He still had a small smudge of grease on his thumb.

“No,” I said quickly. “You can go with me.”

He opened the door just a crack, his eyes locked on me. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“If you want to come, then come,” I told him.

He shook his head and opened the door wider. “That’s not an answer.” He put one brown booted foot outside on the asphalt.

“I want you to come!” I exclaimed. “Are you happy now?”

Jude settled back into the seat and shut the door. “If you wanted me to go with you, all you had to do was say so.”

I scowled at him as I shifted into drive. “Do you love being difficult?” I asked.

“It’s my specialty,” he said with a grin.

#

“The house was completed in 1895 by George Vanderbilt,” the tour guide said. “It boasts two hundred and fifty rooms.”

“Plenty of space to get lost in,” Jude whispered to me.

We had slipped into the back of one of the guided tours, even though I’d only paid our admission for the self-guided one. I felt like a rebel, even if it was something as lame as a guided tour.

The house itself was impressive: an American castle nestled in the green mountains. The rooms were decorated with priceless items. The tour group moved on to the next room, but Jude and I hung back so he could marvel at the ornate ceiling one more time.

“I think my whole house would fit into this room,” he said, craning his neck to look up at the ceiling. “Can you imagine living here? You wouldn’t have to see anyone in your family if you didn’t want to. You could hide out on one side of the house and pretend to be all alone.”

“Sounds lonely,” I said. The house reminded me of my own home. Not that my house was anywhere near as big as Biltmore Estate, much to my mother’s dismay. And we’d never own the antique furniture or portraits on display. But the house had a quiet, frozen feeling to it that I knew well. It was a house waiting to be lived in, a house where the people inside couldn’t quite fill the space enough to make it cozy. The air in the house was cold, even though it was over ninety degrees outside.

“Let’s go outside,” I told Jude, our footsteps echoing through the vast rooms as we walked.

We followed a hall back toward the doors and then found our way to the south terrace. A few people sat on the steps or wandered around looking at the statues situated around the terrace. There were a lot of statues, figures frozen in time, unaware of the demands of life around them. I eyed a statue of a man playing a flute, his sightless eyes staring at nothing as he played on forever.
Must be nice to not have to see how empty and dead a giant house like this really is
, I thought.

I walked over to the stone wall that bordered the side of the house and leaned against it, looking out at the blue mountains that stretched as far as I could see until they blended into the sky. I sucked in a deep breath, holding it in as long as I could before letting it out.

“You okay?” Jude asked. He sat down on the wall next to me, stretching his legs in front of him.

“I’m fine,” I said through clenched teeth. I hadn’t expected to feel this way about a house I had never seen before. It was a tourist museum, not a real home, not anymore. I wondered about the people who had once lived in the mansion and whether they had found happiness hidden away in their impressive castle. Or had they realized that everything they’d built had been a mask for what really lay underneath? No matter how well you held things together on the outside, your life could be crumbling away bit by bit on the inside. Big walls and expensive things couldn’t keep everything together.

“When I was a kid,” Jude said softly, “we used to have a yearly pass to Biltmore. My mom loved coming here and pretending we lived in this giant house. My brother, Liam, used to try to scare me with those big lion statues out front. He told me that they came to life at night and ate anyone who was still in the house when they weren’t supposed to be. I was six and terrified. I nearly peed my pants whenever I passed the lions. If it started to get late in the day and we weren’t on our way out, I’d pester my parents to go until I’d start crying.”

I looked at him from the corner of my eye, but he wasn’t looking at me. He just stared straight ahead at the statues.

“So when did you stop coming here?” I asked.

“When I was nine,” Jude said. “My dad walked out on us, and my mom couldn’t afford the yearly pass anymore. This is the first time I’ve been since then.”

I turned around and sat on the wall next to him. We were quiet for a long time as families and couples moved around us. The wind whipped my hair all around my head.

“What about you?” Jude asked. “What’s your family situation?”

I pressed my fingernails into the stone wall. “I’m an only child.”

“Your parents didn’t come on vacation with you?” he asked.

“My mom is on her own vacation this year. My dad is . . .” I paused, trying to decide on the best way to phrase it as I picked at a crack in the stone wall with my thumb. “ . . . not around,” my voice cracked, as the image of my dad passed out flashed in my mind.

Jude’s forehead creased as he frowned. “Oh,” he said, nodding. “I understand. My brother died almost a year ago.” He bit his lip, looking at two little boys chasing each other across the grass. “I get it. It’s still hard to talk about it.”

Guilt flashed through me. Jude had been through a real loss. It wasn’t right for me to let him believe my dad was dead. But the truth was too complicated, too humiliating to talk about. I couldn’t be the girl with the dad in rehab. This was my summer away, my chance to escape everything, and in a few weeks, I would probably never see Jude again. I didn’t say anything, hoping he wouldn’t press further.

He didn’t. He seemed to know when to step away from a topic. “Hey, you want to see my favorite place in the whole state?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Something even better than Biltmore Estate? I don’t believe it.”

He smiled. “Come on. This is something nature made all on her own.”

Continue reading!

Coming soon to the Stolen Kiss Collection
:

6 guitar strings. 2 boys. 1 summer to let it all go.

The summer before college, Kate Watts wants to do three things: make music, hang out with her best friend Ashton, and scoop ice cream. With an ailing grandfather, a flaky mom who shows up once every who-knows-when, and a looming tuition bill to pay, Kate doesn’t need any more complications.

But “complications” have a way of finding her.

Like when an infuriating new boy named Rory humiliates her at a party.

Like when her wild cousin Paisley shows up unexpectedly at her doorstep to stay.

Like when she’s offered the chance of a lifetime—but only if she throws away the dream she’s been working for.

Soon, straight-shooting Kate gets swept up in a whirlwind of parties with Paisley, all while falling for hot-and-cold Rory…until she begins to suspect that Rory and Paisley might be keeping a huge secret together. Will Kate have to leave everything behind to untangle the truth—including herself?

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