Tempted (25 page)

Callie was imagining a layer of frost on her blue skin as she huddled in the clearing, rocking back and forth in a futile effort to generate heat. The ground was rock hard beneath her. After failing to start a fire, she’d wandered around for a little while before collapsing on the ground. Maybe the best thing would be to conserve her energy? It seemed like a good idea to huddle up against a tree, tucking her knees up inside her jacket, her arms folded across them, hands in her armpits.

Her empty stomach growled but was drowned out by the wind, which continued to whip around her, blowing her strawberry blond hair around her head like she was surfing in a wind tunnel. She’d long ago lost feeling in her toes and fingers. Of all the deaths she’d imagined for herself—skydiving accident; tragically wasting away from a terribly exotic disease like scarlet fever; flying off a cliff,
Thelma & Louise
style, in a speedy red convertible—freezing to death in the wilds of Maine hadn’t been on the list. What would she be remembered for? She could already see the tabloid stories, the truth twisted to fit everyone’s greedy imaginations—
GOVERNOR’S
DAUGHTER
MYSTERIOUSLY
PERISHES
IN
SECRET
REHAB
FACILITY
.

Callie tried to keep her eyes open, but the snow fell faster, weighing down on her lashes, making it hard to stay awake. She saw a light moving back and forth in the distance and felt her heart seize—it was the light at the end of the tunnel, the one they always talked about. It was real. Callie debated standing up to meet it, but realized it was moving toward her. Even more perfect. She didn’t have to do anything.
Just put me out of my misery.
She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was hallucinating. Easy was standing over her, tapping her frantically on the shoulder. How nice, she thought. Her heart flooded with warmth—it felt so right to have Easy be the one to usher her into the light. Like her Virgil—although she tried to push away the unpleasant memory of reading Dante’s
The Divine Comedy
in sophomore world lit. She looked up into Easy’s sweet angel face and smiled, ready to give herself over to the hallucination. She hoped he would be the final thing she saw before she died.

“I found you,” the hallucination said. He smiled and Callie knew it was a dream. She knew Easy was too angry with her to smile so sweetly at her, but she liked this new Easy. She was remembering him before he’d grown so tired of and angry with her.

“I’m glad,” she whispered. “Are you here to take me away?”

Easy nodded. “Yes,” he answered, his voice sounding a million miles away. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Not anymore,” she said. She tried to stand but couldn’t, forgetting that her knees were zipped up under her parka. Instead, she closed her eyes, ready to be transported into the blinding white light. Maybe Easy could beam her up or something. But nothing happened. The snow stopped and Callie opened her eyes. Easy was still standing in front of her, but he’d lost his angelic glow. She could smell the unmistakable scent of horsiness that followed him everywhere. As she stared at his beat-up green Patagonia fleece, she could even spot bits of hay stuck in the fabric. “Ohmigod!” she breathed suddenly. “It’s really you!” She struggled to get up and instead tipped over into the snow.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” He leaned down and helped her untangle herself. All Callie could do, though, was limply follow his movements, unable to pull her nose away from his neck, which smelled like the stables and turpentine and shaving cream all rolled into one. He lifted her off the ground as easily as picking up a bicycle that had been knocked over.

“C’mon,” he said, pulling her close to him and rubbing his arms up and down her back. She shivered. “Let’s get you back. You need to sit by the fire. And have a cup of hot chocolate.” He took off his thick black wool scarf and wound it around her neck tenderly.

“How did you find me?” she asked in amazement, touching his cheek with her bare fingers. She needed to feel the reality of Easy’s skin against hers.

“Long story.” With an arm tightly around her waist, like he wasn’t ever going to let go, Easy led her through the snow. “But basically … Jenny told me the whole thing, about where the hell you were. And about the check, too.” His arm tightened around her. “That was really … uh … sweet of you to do.”

Callie smiled back, feeling so happy she could cry—and she probably would have, if her tear ducts hadn’t been frozen. “That’s what I wanted to tell you at the party,” she explained, her tongue still numb against her lips. “But you didn’t give me the chance.”

Easy pulled her even closer. The warmth from his body seemed to seep through her clothes. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, his hands running over her hair.
Oh God, my hair,
she thought briefly. It was all knotty and tangled, her face probably red with windburn. He grinned. “I knew you had it in you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Callie said, curling her chapped lips into a pout. In reality, the feel of Easy’s arm around her erased all reservations or qualms or worries she had about their relationship. Who cared if she was addicted to Easy if it felt this good?

He arched his eyebrows. “Yeah, I did. I have a long memory. I missed the old Callie. I thought about her on the flight here.”

“What flight?” she asked. A wind rattled against them and Easy shielded her.

“I chartered a plane to come get you.”

“What?” Callie’s head was spinning. A plane? Easy? “My knight in shining armor,” Callie said, smiling, even though her face still felt frozen.”But wait, how did you know where to find me?”

“I told you.” Easy glanced down at her, a look of concern drifting across his face. “Jenny told me.”

“No.” Callie squeezed his arm. “How did you know where to find me out
here?”
She spread her arms wide, pointing at the trees around them, and up toward the cold winter sky.

“This is where they said they dropped you,” Easy said, confused. He looked over his shoulder. “The dining hall is just over that embankment.”

Callie peered into the darkness.
Could that possibly be true?
Then she recognized the familiar stand of birch trees she’d spotted when Natasha had abandoned her for her solo. She’d never felt more foolish—she’d actually been ready to die, and they’d probably been peeping out the windows at her, placing bets on when she’d catch the scent of boiled potatoes and realize she was about fifty yards from the camp. “That’s just so
mean.”

Easy put his arms around Callie. Her tiny body shook violently in the cold, and he wondered what kind of place could do something like that. He’d heard about boot camps in the desert where kids died. Wasn’t this the same thing? What the hell had crazy old Governor Vernon been thinking? He’d had horrible visions on the plane of arriving too late, of finding Callie’s bloodless body laid out for him to take home, her skin cold to his touch.

The second he’d gotten Jenny’s message, he’d flown into action, taking a cab to the local commuter airport and spending the balance of his bank account on chartering a plane that could take him to Maine immediately. It was insane, really—leaving campus in the middle of the night. If he got caught … even Mrs. Horniman wouldn’t be able to save his sorry ass.

But he loved Callie. He knew that now. He remembered something he’d overheard one of those corny late-night preachers saying as he flipped through the channels one summer when he was at home in Lexington:
Forgiveness is a present you give yourself.
It started that way, sure. He’d felt the relief of letting go of all the grudges he’d held against Callie and all that Callie had done. But when he saw her face, he knew how sorry she was about the whole thing. She was a good person. He might be the only one at Waverly who knew it—and God knew sometimes Callie didn’t do anything to help her case—but he knew it.

Easy bore Callie’s weight as they trudged back toward the center’s buildings. A cab was waiting for them in the driveway, ready to whisk them off to the airport. “We really need to get back. Can you send for your things?”

Callie shrugged her shoulders and smiled brightly up at him. Her hair was a complete mess—she’d probably die if she glanced in the mirror right now—but she looked more beautiful than he ever remembered seeing her. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”

Easy touched her chin. He felt the same way.

Jenny shivered and opened her eyes. She felt disoriented at the sight of a sleek black dashboard in front of her—until she saw the silver-and-diamond
S
hanging from the rearview mirror, and the whole night flashed back. Insisting on joining Tinsley for the Callie rescue mission, borrowing Seb’s car, the nightmare snowstorm that had forced them off the road. Out the front window, the sun was creeping up over the horizon, tinting the snow purple and yellow.

The strong smell of strawberries hit her nose, and she realized Tinsley’s head was on her shoulder. They’d made it. They’d actually lived through the night. She wiggled her pink Keds, which the snow had soaked through last night, and realized she could feel her toes. A good sign.

A tiny snore escaped Tinsley’s lips, and Jenny studied her face. Her skin really
was
flawless. Five inches away and she couldn’t spot a single pore. What on earth did she use? Some rare skin cream from Switzerland that only rich people knew about, probably. Funny, but Jenny hadn’t actually looked hard at Tinsley all semester—she’d always been turning in the opposite direction whenever Tinsley appeared, in an effort just to get out of her way. There was something exotic about examining Tinsley’s face up close, like looking through a telescope at a rare bird. Asleep, she seemed so … peaceful. Not at all like the viper Jenny had come to think of her as.

Should she wake her up? They’d fallen asleep trading stories after Jenny, trying to break the awkward silence between them as they sat huddled under Drew’s blanket, had spilled about the whole Drew saga. It was kind of masochistic of her—she knew the embarrassing way she’d been duped by a slimeball like Drew would be spread across campus in a matter of hours after their return. But she kind of didn’t care. To Jenny’s immense surprise, instead of laughing at her, or telling her
I told you so,
Tinsley had been sympathetic. And even told a few stories of her own, changing the names, of course. It had been kind of … fun.

Finally, her neck cramping up from a night of sleeping against the headrest, she slid her shoulder out from under Tinsley’s head.

Tinsley opened her eyes and stared, not moving her head, as if trying to discern where she was and whether or not she was dreaming. Her violet eyes, dark with sleep, settled on Jenny. A slight smile—or was it a smirk?—crossed her lips before disappearing.

“Morning,” Jenny said casually, massaging the back of her neck.

Tinsley stretched her arms over the steering wheel and let out a long moan. “Morning.” She stared out at the winter wonderland around them. “I can’t believe we’re still here.”

“If I would’ve known we were going to live through the night, I would’ve packed a toothbrush,” Jenny said, testing the water. She quickly brushed her hair down with her hands and pulled it into a ponytail with the elastic she kept around her wrist.

Tinsley cracked a smile. “Yeah, I could go for a toothbrush right about now.” She dug around in her bag for her cigarettes, producing the worn pack of Pall Malls. She shook one free and then paused before holding one out to Jenny. “This’ll have to do instead.” She turned the key in the ignition again, the unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. She looked to Jenny like one of those tough chicks in black-and-white movies that were on late at night. The car made a gurgling sound when Tinsley turned it over, and she gave up, opening the car door instead as she lit her cigarette with her red Bic lighter. It seemed like a very un-Tinsley-like gesture to care about not filling someone else’s car with smoke.

A rush of fresh air chased the staleness from the Mustang. Tinsley handed the lighter to Jenny, who lit her cigarette and passed it back. She’d never smoked before, but she wasn’t about to refuse the peace offering.

“Think they’ve sent the search party for us yet?” Jenny asked, drawing lightly on the cigarette, trying not to inhale too much and cough. She cracked open her door, too, and exhaled.

“Uh, the three coolest kids in school are missing.” Tinsley leaned back in her seat and stared at the ceiling of the car. “I’ll bet the place is in a state of frenzy.”

Three coolest kids in school? Did she mean to include Jenny, or was she counting Easy? Regardless, Jenny smiled back. There was something indescribably satisfying about a compliment from Tinsley Carmichael. “We’re not dead yet,” she said cheerfully, thinking that it was actually kind of nice to be skipping her Tuesday morning algebra class. She pushed open her door and climbed out. “I have to stretch my legs.”

“Maybe I can get some reception,” Tinsley agreed, pulling her turtleneck up over her chin.

Jenny shielded her eyes as the sun popped up over the horizon. The snowdrifts glinted in the sunlight, as if there were tiny diamonds spread across the landscape. “Well, that has to be east.”

“The car is pointed in the right direction, then,” Tinsley surmised. “So we got that going for us.”

They both laughed. Jenny’s mouth tasted sour from the cigarette and she tossed it into the wind. It landed in the snow, fizzling out. As she followed the cigarette’s wind-blown arc, something caught her eye. She looked for it again, but there was nothing. She stood still and stared, waiting for it to happen again.

“What is it?” Tinsley asked.

“There’s something over there,” Jenny said, pointing. The cold air actually hurt as it touched her bare skin. Why hadn’t she thought to bring gloves? She took a few steps up the embankment and jumped up to see over the snow.