Shadow Creek (20 page)

Except then her mother would have won.

Won what? Brianne wondered now, slapping a mosquito away from her left ear and ducking to avoid being slapped in the face by the wayward branch of a tree.

She stopped to rub her sore ankle as Hayden disappeared around a bend in the trail. Damn it, this was all her mother’s fault. “Great,” she said, peering through the darkness after him, seeing nothing. Where were they anyway? He kept saying that the lake was just around the next tree, but it never was. Where was he taking her?

Everything is turning to rat shit, Brianne thought, fighting back tears. She was supposed to be spending this time with Tyler, and instead here she was in the middle of nowhere, wasting half the night with the dorky son of one of her mother’s former classmates. And not only did his cell phone not work—his phone plan didn’t include texting.
Who doesn’t have texting?

“We might get better reception down at the lake,” he’d assured her after she’d tried, and failed, to get a signal soon after leaving the campsite.

Except there didn’t seem to be any lake. There were just trees and bugs, and then surprise—more trees and more bugs. “Damn it,” she cursed, wondering if her mother was behind this little excursion, if she’d cooked up this whole scheme to teach her some kind of lesson—“Just go over and ask her if she’d like to go for a walk, casually mention you have a cell phone,” Brianne could almost hear her mother suggesting to Hayden. “Then take her on a nice long walk to nowhere.”

Except that
I’m
the one who suggested the walk, she realized.
I’m
the one who asked Hayden if he had a cell phone. He’d just been making pleasant conversation, offering her a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. Of course, her mother might have decided that this was the best way to play her, knowing the way her mind worked.

Except she
doesn’t
know how my mind works, Brianne thought defiantly. She thinks she knows me, but she doesn’t. She has no idea what I’m feeling. She doesn’t know me at all. Sometimes Brianne wondered if her mother had ever been young.

Brianne heard a sudden rustling, the snapping of wood, and glanced warily over her shoulder. Hadn’t James mentioned the possibility of bears?

“Brianne?” Hayden’s voice shook the leaves of the surrounding trees. “Brianne, where the hell are you?”

“Back here!” she shouted, her words ricocheting off a nearby cluster of rocks.

“Why’d you stop?” he asked, his face suddenly popping into view.

“Are there bears around here?” she asked, ignoring his question.

Hayden shrugged. “I don’t think you have to worry about bears.”

What did that mean? Was he implying there was something else she should be worrying about? “Where’s the lake?” she asked, as if he might have moved it.

“Just around the next bend.”

“You’ve been saying that for the past hour.”

Hayden checked his watch, then laughed. “We’ve been walking less than fifteen minutes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” He held out his arm to show her the Swiss Army watch dangling from his slender wrist. “See for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” she said, although truthfully, she wasn’t entirely convinced. “It just feels like we’ve been walking forever.”

Hayden glanced pointedly toward her feet, but said nothing. He didn’t have to.

“You sure your phone will get better reception at the lake?”

“No,” he admitted. “Look. We can go back, if you’d like.”

After coming all this way? Brianne thought. After ruining my new shoes? “No. We’ve come this far. We might as well see if we can get your stupid phone to work.”

“Who are you trying to call anyway?”

Brianne frowned as they resumed walking. “Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t.”

“Your dad didn’t tell you?”

“Was he supposed to?”

Brianne came to an abrupt stop. “You’re seriously trying to tell me that your dad didn’t say anything to you about what happened this afternoon?”

Hayden shrugged. “Just that there was some mix-up at the lodge about your room and that you guys would be spending the night at the campground.”

“That’s all he said?”

“I take it he left something out.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She pushed her way in front of him, picking up her pace.

And then suddenly, the lake was right there in front of them, the smooth surface of its clear water sparkling in the moonlight, like a picture on a glossy postcard.

Hayden smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Brianne silently acknowledged that it was. “If you like that sort of thing.”

“You don’t?”

“Never really thought about it.”

“I would have thought you liked to swim.” He picked up a pebble, gracefully flicking it into the lake. It skipped across the water’s glassy surface, creating a series of expanding ripples, like cracks in a mirror.

Brianne watched the ripples round out and expand, only to disappear before they reached the shore. “Why would you think that?”

“Wasn’t your mother on the swim team with my dad at school?”

“Just because my mother likes to swim doesn’t mean I do. Do you like everything your father does?”

“I was just trying to make conversation.”

“No need. Can I try your phone again?”

Hayden reached into the pocket of his jeans and handed her his cell without further comment.

“Damn it,” Brianne said when she still couldn’t find a signal. “What’s the matter with this stupid thing?” She began pacing along the edge of the lake, shaking the small phone as if it were a container of salt. “Where’d you get this dinosaur anyway? It’s like from the Dark Ages.”

“Hey. Careful. You’ll break it.”

“I think it’s already broken.”

“Sometimes it takes a few minutes.”

“Shit.”

“What’s with the urgency?” Hayden asked.

“None of your business.” Brianne felt her shoulders slump.
Could this night get any worse? “Promise you won’t tell my mother?”

“Tell her what? Why would I tell her anything?”

Brianne’s prolonged sigh combined equal portions of fatigue and defeat. “I’m trying to reach my boyfriend.”

Hayden nodded, as if he understood. “A boyfriend your mother doesn’t like?”

“She hates him.”

“Why?”

“Because she thinks he’s too old for me.” And maybe because some nosy park rangers caught us without our clothes on in the middle of a public place in the middle of the afternoon, she added silently.

“How old
is
he?”

“Not
that
old.” Brianne decided it was probably best to avoid particulars. She tried the phone again. Still nothing.

“We could walk some more. Shadow Creek is just up that way a bit.” Hayden pointed off in the distance.

“You’re joking, right?” Brianne handed him back his phone as she sank to the ground, feeling the earth’s dampness immediately seep through her shorts. Hell, my shoes are already ruined, she thought. Might as well destroy the rest of my wardrobe. It was obvious she wouldn’t be meeting up with Tyler again tonight. Seconds later, Hayden was sitting on the ground beside her, although he was careful to keep a respectful distance between them. “Don’t get any ideas,” she said anyway.

“What?”

Brianne couldn’t tell from Hayden’s tone whether he was more shocked or repulsed by her suggestion. What’s his problem? she wondered. “So, you have a girlfriend?”

He shook his head.

“Boyfriend?” She was being deliberately provocative and was disappointed that the surrounding darkness prevented her from fully appreciating his reaction.

“You think I’m gay?”

“Are you?”

“No. Why would you think that?”

“It’s no big deal if you are, you know.”

“I’m not.”

“My mother’s friend James is gay.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that.”

“Subtlety isn’t exactly his strong suit. I keep scolding him for being such a stereotype, but he says he was raised by an eccentric single mother to be a dancer on Broadway, so what did I expect?” She laughed.

“Seems like a nice enough guy.”

“Nice enough for what?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hayden asked.

“Nothing. Why are you so touchy all of a sudden?”

“I’m not touchy.”

Brianne shrugged. “Whatever.”

“What’s with the woman in black?” Hayden asked after several seconds of silence, his voice strained.

“Melissa. She always wears black. It’s kind of her trademark. She’s pretty cool, actually.”

“So, it’s only your mother you don’t like,” Hayden said.

The casual observation made Brianne bristle. “What are you talking about? I love my mother.”

“You
love
her. You just don’t
like
her.”

“What are you talking about?” Brianne asked again.

“Now who’s being touchy?”

“I’m not being touchy.”

“It’s okay. I don’t like my mother much, either.”

“You don’t? Why?”

“She’s a slut,” he said simply.

“Whoa! Did you just call your mother a slut?”

“Yeah, I guess I did. It kind of popped out. Sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize.” Brianne laughed.

“You think it’s funny my mother’s a slut?”

“No. Of course not. It’s just that that’s what my mother calls Jennifer. My father’s fiancée. The one …”

“With the legs,” Hayden said.

Okay, so he’s not gay, Brianne thought. Still, there was clearly more to Hayden than she’d originally suspected. He might be a dork, but he was an angry dork. A dork with mommy issues. Which made him marginally more interesting. “So, tell me why you think your mother’s a slut.”

“Because she cheated on my dad with half the planet. Don’t say anything,” he added quickly. “My dad thinks I don’t know.”

“How did you find out?”

“One of my friends saw her coming out of a motel one night with some guy who wasn’t my dad. He told me.”

“I once saw my father making out with Jennifer in his car. Like they were two horny teenagers. Pretty disgusting.”

Hayden nodded. “Looks like we have something in common.”

“Did she really sleep with half the planet?” Brianne asked, not appreciating the inference that she could have anything in common with someone so obviously uncool. She thought of her father, wondering how many other affairs he’d had. She knew Jennifer wasn’t his first.

There was the time she’d walked past his study and heard him whispering into the phone, followed by a quick goodbye and a too-bright smile when he saw her, and there was that other time, a few years ago, when she’d dropped in on him at
work only to find his office door locked and his new assistant away from her desk. She’d been about to leave when she heard muffled noises—giggles, sighs, low murmurs—coming from inside his office, and so she’d approached cautiously, putting her ear to the frosted glass of the door, then knocking gently. “Daddy,” she’d called out, growing bolder when she heard someone moving around inside. “Daddy, are you there?” It had taken a few minutes for the door to open and his new assistant, one Miss Jacqueline Gum, to emerge, slightly flushed and clearly flustered. “Why, hi there, Brianne,” Jacqueline Gum had said. “How are you today?” Her father had quickly waved her inside, smiling that too-bright smile. “Well, isn’t this an unexpected pleasure?” The next time Brianne had paid her father a visit she discovered Miss Gum was no longer in his employ. “How come none of your assistants lasts very long?” she’d asked him. He’d only laughed and shaken his head, as if to say, Beats me.

“I heard my dad talking to his lawyer on the phone,” Hayden was saying, answering the question she’d already forgotten she’d asked. “He told the lawyer there were three guys that he knew of, including—get this—my uncle.”

“No shit.” Wow, Brianne thought. This guy has to be seriously messed up.

“Since the divorce there have been at least four more that I’m aware of,” he continued, unprompted. “She’s been dating this one guy now for about six months. Looks like he could be a keeper.”

“How do you feel about that?”

He laughed. “You sound like my therapist.”

“You see a shrink?”

“I did for a while. My dad thought it was a good idea. To help me deal with the divorce …”

“How long did you go for?”

“A few years.” He shrugged. “It was no big deal,” he said. But his eyes said otherwise.

“Your dad seems like a pretty smart guy.”

“He’s great. Salt of the earth, as my grandfather used to say.”

“Salt of the earth?” Brianne repeated. “What does that mean?”

“It’s just an expression.”

“Can I try your phone again?”

Hayden handed her back his cell phone. Brianne once again tried, and failed, to find a signal.

“Damn it,” she said.

“We might have more luck if we move around.” Hayden pushed himself to his feet. “Here. Let me try.”

Brianne watched him punch in a few numbers as he edged closer to the water. “Anything?”

Hayden began pacing back and forth along the shoreline. “No. Hey, you want to know where the expression ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ comes from?”

“No,” Brianne said. God, he really
was
a dork.

“Way back in the 1500s,” he told her anyway, “houses had thatched roofs which, as you know, are made of thick straw, piled really high, with no wood underneath. Since that was the only place for animals to get warm—because, of course, they didn’t have central heating in those days—all the cats and dogs and small animals, like rodents and stuff, lived in the roof. And when it rained, the roof became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall down from the roof. Hence the saying …”

“ ‘It’s raining cats and dogs.’ ” Brianne managed a weak smile. Poor guy is pathetic, she thought. “Okay, I’ve had enough.” She clambered to her feet. “Let’s go back.”

“Wait,” Hayden said suddenly. “I think I may have something.”

Brianne was immediately beside him, snatching the phone from his hand. “It’s really faint,” she said, distancing herself from him as she entered the numbers for Tyler’s cell. “It’s ringing. Hello? Hello? Tyler? Damn it,” she said, as static took over the line, forcing her to move back toward Hayden. “Tyler? Can you hear me? I don’t know if he can hear me,” she whined.