Thrown (2 page)

I squint into the darkness and cup a hand over my eyes to shade them from the glow of the porch light. ‘Hello?’

He steps forward into the light and I actually have to hold back a gasp.

He looks about my age, maybe older…maybe twenty one or twenty two.

Differing opinions about what makes a guy hot are negated where guys like this are concerned. He must have all the girls of Promise Cove wrapped around his finger. His face is the kind you might see on the cover of a men’s fitness magazine; ruggedly handsome with everything arranged in the perfect golden ratio of a work of art. His hair is dark and slightly tousled as if he just ran his fingers through it - and that thought immediately think that I’d like to run my fingers through it - and he has dark stubble on his cheeks and chin and neck that makes his drop dead gorgeous looks seem totally casual and natural. Like he can’t help looking this good even if he hasn’t shaved today and the cliff top winds have messed up his hair.

He’s wearing a black leather jacket against the cool night breeze and beneath that a plain black t-shirt and black jeans with a black leather belt that has a simple brushed steel square buckle with an eagle design etched into it. His boots are black like everything else he’s wearing. Is he here for the wake? I realize I can’t ask him because I’m still holding my breath.

‘Hey,’ he says, shooting me a smile that makes me want to melt at his feet.

I exhale as steadily as I can and lean back against the brick wall of the house to make sure I stay upright. Dell could have warned me. OK, she did warn me by saying there was a hot guy at the door but she didn’t say he was
this
hot. And she didn’t warn me to fix my appearance before I met him. I run a hand through my hair self-consciously. I’m sure I must look a mess after standing outside on the cliffs in the sea breeze. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I know this is a bad time,’ he says, indicating the crowd of people inside the house, but I thought I should bring your aunt’s car back.’

I’m confused. ‘Her car?’

He comes closer and leans nonchalantly on the strut that holds up the porch roof. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with a slim waist and I wonder if he goes to the gym to work out or if he does some sort of martial art. I think it’s the latter because his knuckles are bruised and have tiny scabs on them as if they’ve been cut recently.

‘I was fixing the exhaust pipe for her. Put a new on on. The old on was hanging off.’ He gestures into the darkness and I can just make out the outline of Aunt B’s silver Volvo.

‘Oh,’ I say.

‘Are you OK?’ He looks me over and arches an eyebrow. Despite his leather and black denim, muscles and too-long hair, those gray eyes seem soft and honest. It’s almost as if the hard man appearance is a disguise.

No, not a disguise…more like armor to protect the vulnerable person I’m sure is hiding behind those eyes.

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Thanks for returning the car. Do I owe you anything? My purse is just in the house. I don’t have a lot of cash but I can go to the bank tomorrow if you tell me how much…’

He lets out a low laugh and shakes his head. ‘No, it’s fine. I was fixing it as a favor for your aunt.’

A favor? For Aunt B? How did she know this incredibly handsome young man well enough for him to do her a favor and fix her car for free?

What had she done for him? But if they knew each other that well, why wasn’t he at her funeral? He definitely wasn’t at the funeral; I would have remembered if he had been there. So what was his relationship with Aunt Bethany?

I don’t ask him any of that. All that passes my lips is a confused, ‘Oh, thanks.’

He laughs again. ‘You’re Amy, right? The heiress of Promise House?’

The way he says it in his English accent makes it sound like an actual royal title.

I nod. ‘The bookshop too. Do you read?’ I close my eyes with embarrassment. What a stupid question. My mind had been working on how I might see this as-yet-unnamed guy again and the thought that had bubbled up from my subconscious had been that he could be a customer at the bookshop. My conscious mind had processed that information and turned it into the dumbest question ever asked by a girl to a guy she wanted to learn more about. Do you read? I shake my head at myself.

Dumb. Totally dumb, Amy. Now he’s going to think you’re a freak and he’s actually right about that. You could have kept that part of yourself secret for awhile but now it’s out.

He grins. ‘Yeah, I read. I even have a literary name. Stoker.’

‘Stoker.’ I say it as if tasting it. ‘Like Bram Stoker?’

‘That’s right. Except my name is Dean. And I didn’t write
Dracula
.

My friends all call me Stoker.’ He holds out his right hand, wanting to shake. They do everything so properly here in England.

I shake his hand. His skin is warm and his grip is strong and confident.

His big hand drowns mine. ‘Hi, Stoker. I’m Amy, as you know.’

He frowns at me. ‘I said my friends call me Stoker. I don’t know you yet so you can call me Dean.’

Yet
? That word sends a little tingle through me. ‘OK…Dean.’

He smiles. ‘I’m kidding. Call me Stoker.’

I missed his joke because he threw me with the word ‘yet’. I grin, which he probably thinks is because he was joking with me but is actually because he just mentioned the possibility of me getting to know him with a simple three letter word. And that possibility makes me feel happy even though I don’t really know why. Sure, he’s a good-looking guy but I’ve seen plenty of those and not been thrown sideways like this.

He lets go of my hand and says, ‘You want to put the car in the garage?’

At the side of the house is a little garage where Aunt B always kept the Volvo and where I assumed it was all this time. I didn’t know it was in the hands of hunky leather-jacketed Stoker.

He holds out the keys to me. Aunt B’s keychain, a small silver “V” for Volvo, dangles beneath his hand. I take the “V” between my thumb and forefinger and pull and the rest of the chain and the key follow. I’m not sure I can touch him again and still breath normally. I’ve already made a bad enough impression on him. His presence on the porch is affecting me in ways I thought were just the stuff of romance novels. I feel like I’m drowning in his gaze and that I can’t support myself without leaning against Promise House.

He steps off the porch and disappears into the dark. Letting out a long exhale, I push myself from the wall and follow him. ‘I’ll just open the garage,’ I say, giving myself an excuse to get away from him for a moment. I need to breathe. I need to gather my thoughts into some semblance of intelligence before I speak to Stoker again. The garage key in on the same key ring as the car keys and I use it to unlock the garage door before pulling on the handle. The door swings up, revealing the dark interior of the garage. I find the light switch and flick it on. A wooden rack of shelves on the far wall holds an assortment of tools but apart from that the garage is empty. There’s plenty of room for the car.

I gather myself, take a breath and turn to face Stoker. He’s standing by the Volvo waiting. He’s already done his job by delivering the car so why is he hanging around? Maybe he wants to see if my driving is as bad as my conversation skills. As I approach the car, I remember something about the Volvo and groan.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I just remembered, Aunt B’s car has a gearshift.’

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Over here maybe. But not back home. I’ve only driven an automatic.’

‘You don’t know how to work the gears?’

I shake my head. I could have tried to fake it and get the Volvo in the garage…it’s only about twenty feet from here to there…but I don’t want to risk damaging Aunt B’s car.

He holds out his hand. ‘Throw me the keys, I’ll do it.’

Did he notice I didn’t touch him when I took the keys from him? Is that why he wants me to throw the keys to him and not pass them to him?

Maybe he thinks I’m scared of him. Thinks I’m taken in by the bad boy image he portrays. Maybe that’s how most people see him…the bad boy?

Or maybe he thinks I’m just a crazy American girl who doesn’t like touching or something.

To prove him wrong on all counts, I walk over to him and place the keys in his hand, my fingers brushing his palm. He flashes me a smile that makes me wonder if he actually is a model and he slides into the car.

He cranks it and guides it effortlessly into the garage while I stand on the gravel watching him. He climbs out and hits the light, sending the garage into blackness as Stoker reaches up to grab the door and slide it down.

As he reaches for the door, the t-shirt rides up his stomach, revealing a taut six pack of abs. Is he just perfect? He has the perfect face, body, smile and eyes. And what I’ve seen of his personality intrigues me. He didn’t make fun of me when he could have and he knew Aunt B well enough for her to go to him when she needed her car fixed. Maybe I had to come all the way to England and start a new life to meet the perfect boy.

But that’s the problem. If he
is
perfect…hell, even if he’s just a nice guy…I need to stay away from him. Because I’m broken inside. Far from perfect. He may think I’m a normal girl, despite the evidence I’ve given him to the contrary, but he can’t see the darkness inside me. He doesn’t know about the thin scars on my upper arms. He’d never guess that I’m the type of girl who keeps razor blades in her nightstand. That I need to cut myself to let out the darkness in the form of pain.

I think all this as he walks back over to me and hands me the keys.

‘Well, thanks,’ I say in a tone that suggests our transaction is over. He brought the car back and his favor is done. We are done. It’s time for me to get back to the wake and for him to go back to wherever he came from.

And in the morning wen I wake up, the mourners will all be gone and Frank and Julie will be gone and Stoker will be gone.

I’ll have Dell for another week but then she’ll be gone too.

And Promise House will feel so lonely.

He detects me dark mood. He looks at me for a moment with those lovely eyes then he nods as if understanding what I’m thinking and heads across the gravel toward the narrow road that leads down into town. ‘I’ll probably see you around. Promise Cove is a small place.’

What is he trying to say? That I can’t avoid him? Ever since stepping out on the porch, I’ve felt confused. He has done that to me. Somehow he has made me feel like I’m off balance and falling off a cliff into a raging deep sea. I stand there watching him leave and I don’t say anything.

He reaches gate that leads onto the road then stops and turns around.

He starts back toward me.

No, no, no…I want you to leave. Don’t come back to talk with me some more. I’m not the pleasant girl you think I am. I’m not a sweet blonde American girl come here to run the bookshop and fit into the Promise Cove community. I’m the heiress of Promise House. The heiress of ghosts. The heiress of broken things and dark secrets.

Stoker reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a business card, which he places in my hand. ‘If you want to learn to use the gearshift, I can teach you.’

The card is crumpled as if it has been in his pocket for a long time.

The words ‘STOKER AUTOS’ are emblazoned across the top in stark black letters. Below that is a cartoon drawing of a crashed car and a list of services that Stoker Autos carry out. At the bottom, printed in smaller lettering is the name ‘Max Stoker’ and a phone number.

I arch an eyebrow. ‘Max Stoker?’

‘That’s my dad. He owns the garage.’ An unreadable look passes across his face. ‘Turn the card over.’

I turn it over in my hand. Across the back of the card is a number scrawled in black pen.

‘My number,’ he says. ‘If you want to learn the gearshift, just give me a call.’

He turns and heads back to the road, leaving me with his number and a head full of confused thoughts. I feel like throwing the card away. The last thing Dean Stoker needs is to have me enter his life.

But as I walk back to the porch and hear the hum of conversation from inside Promise House, I want to see Stoker again more than anything I have ever wanted in my life.

Later when everyone is asleep I sit on my bed listening to the house settle. Creaking floorboards and pipes rattling in the attic and the wind blowing through the eaves. In my hand is a razor, taken carefully from the pack that now sits on my nightstand. The thin metal blade seems to glint in the light from the bedside lamp. Sitting beneath the lamp is the bottle of iodine and the rolled up bandage.

The mourners all left with their sentimental comments and pitiful glances and none of it seemed to mean anything to me. Of course not. To a girl who is dead inside, nothing can penetrate her being. Nothing affects her anymore.

What about Stoker? During the short time we spent on the driveway, I felt like he somehow got through a chink in my armor. I don’t like that.

Nobody gets to me that fast. Only Dell is allowed to get inside the shell I put between myself and the rest of the world and that’s because she’s my best friend and I’ve known her for years. No boy is going to turn up and sweep me off my feet. It isn’t going to happen. I had boyfriends in Boston but even the longest relationship, which lasted three months, failed because I didn’t allow myself to lower the armor. It’s who I am. Nobody is going to change that.

I miss Aunt B. I miss Mom. This is the house where they grew up and I can feel them everywhere. I can imagine them as two little girls playing together, chasing each other down the halls and playing hide and seek in the rooms. I remember when I was a little girl myself and Aunt B would set up treasure hunts that sent me off through the house and garden looking for the clues she had laid out. ‘Look for the things that are out of place, the things that don’t belong,’ she would tell me to guide me toward the next clue.

There’s only one thing here that doesn’t belong and that’s me. I don’t know what I’m going to do when Dell goes back to Boston next week. I will be truly alone.

With Mom and Aunt B gone, the responsibility of the bookshop suddenly seems overwhelming, despite the false confidence I tried to show Frank.