“Yes. You meant something to Denny once. I watched over them not for you, but for him.”
Mrs. Young plows into me. The hugging type of tackle and I freeze.
“Thank you,” she whispers into my ear. “For taking care of them both.”
Uh... “You’re welcome?”
She pulls away, but keeps her hands on my shoulders. “There are no more secrets in this house. No more lies. You’re a part of us now and these rules apply to you. You did what you had to do to stay alive and I understand that, but that’s your past and your future is different, do you understand?”
Mrs. Young is staring straight at me and the truth is there in those majestic blue eyes. She’s keeping me. She’s offering me a second chance.
“Yes, I completely understand.”
She flashes a brilliant smile and steps back as she releases me. “Wonderful. Now with so many of you in the house, I need to make sure that snacks are being made for later. I’ll give you a few minutes alone to take in your room.”
Mrs. Young dashes away with an air of confidence that would have made her a fantastic drug dealer. This must mean there really is hope for me yet.
I turn the knob and begin to wonder about things I should have thought of before stuffing myself with several servings of turkey and potatoes and pie. For instance, clothes. I need clothes and personal products and maybe a few things to make me feel like this place might be a...
...a home.
The light is already on in the room and staring right back at me are easily a hundred different stuffed animals. The ones my Grams gave me. The ones Denny gave me. The ones my father brought home to me. My eyes burn and my throat swells as I cross the room and lift the worn white stuffed bunny my father gave to me when I was smaller.
After Grams had washed me up, blow-dried my hair, and tucked me into bed, my father entered, crouching down so that we were eye to eye. “Mom says you’re scared of the dark.”
I had gripped the edge of the covers. “Not of the dark.” Never the dark. “She comes in my dreams and she takes me away from you.” A woman in black. A woman who looked a lot like the woman who gave birth to me.
The stuffed bunny magically appeared from behind his back. “This bunny, he’ll keep you safe when I’m not around. He’ll scare away anything in your dreams and me, I can scare away anything in the waking world.”
Like I did that night, I hug the white bunny to me and my lower lip trembles. “I love you, Daddy.” And then my heart breaks a little more when I realize I’ll never see Grams again, that I’ll never return to my small tucked-away bedroom at the end of the hall. That I’ll never stand in her doorway and count her breaths. That she’ll never brush my hair again, that I’ll never read aloud to her at three.
I realize my Grams is dead and that my father will never return home.
I sink to the floor, lower my head into the bunny and I cry.
* * *
All cried out and trying to find a way to leave without admitting I cried, I jump when there’s a knock on the door. It’s weird to say, “Come in,” because it’s weird to think I have permission to say this as if I live here, but I guess I do live here now and it’s time to own it.
Rachel pokes her head in and she reminds me a bit of her mom with the hesitant grin. How many times has Mrs. Young stuck her head into Rachel’s room to gauge what the two of us were doing behind closed doors?
“Are you okay?” Rachel asks.
A glance in the oversize mirror over the dresser confirms the answer is no. My eyes are red and swollen and it’s even stranger that I don’t care that Rachel knows I have the ability to cry. She already saw it once, at Grams’s funeral.
I wave the stuffed bunny at her. “I found these and...” Just and.
Rachel enters and closes the door behind her. “You can thank West for that. The moment we walked in your room and saw those, he was a madman putting them in boxes.”
My friends packed the house for me before Grams died. Sold most everything so we would have money to put her in a decent nursing home and kept only a few things of Grams’s for me. It’s strange I never thought about my room. After I was arrested, that all seemed lost.
I move over on the bed, a nonverbal cue for Rachel to join me and she does. She picks up a pink sheep and messes with the ears. “Are you okay living here? I was so excited to think of you being here with me that I never thought that maybe you wouldn’t want to be here.”
“I want to,” I rush out. “Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t want to live here? And I’m here with you and Ethan. West and Isaiah will be around a ton and you have food. I’m freaking Orphan Annie and I love it here.”
Rachel watches me as she waits for the “but” to my statement and it’s an intense stare.
I suck in a breath and say, “But I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Messing it up. What if I try and I fail? What if I go down this legit route and find out I suck at it?” What if all I am good at is being a drug dealer?
“We all suck at it, Abby. We just lean a little bit more on each other on the bad days and laugh together on the good ones. Today—I hope—is a good day.”
My heart beats hard at the thought of failing, but then lifts at the idea of having people who will catch me on the days I fall. I will fall and they will catch me. I have faith in that.
Logan was right, faith is believing in what you can’t always see and I don’t have to be constantly looking at the people in this house to know I’m in good hands. “Today is definitely a good day.”
A rattle of a cage and my head whips to the other side of the room. Adrenaline races through my veins and I shoot off the bed. “You brought my bunny here?”
“Logan did,” Rachel says I lift the massive fur ball into my arms. “This morning. He wanted Thumper to be here to greet you.”
Another knock on the door, and in slips Mrs. Young. “You have many nice-looking young men wondering where you two are at.”
I clear my throat and stroke Thumper. “Thank you for this. For all of this.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Mrs. Young says. “I went ahead and bought you a few new things and then I thought we could go shopping for more next week. You, me and Rachel. It will be fun.”
I can’t help but smile when Rachel groans.
“That sounds great.” Because even though that sounds like hell for Rachel, shopping with my best friend and her mom really might be fun. Malls—I think I can do malls, without being there to complete a deal.
Rachel pets Thumper, winks at me, and then leaves. Mrs. Young opens the door the rest of the way. “Are you ready to put your past behind you?”
Forget my past? No. I’m grateful to my father, to my Grams. They loved me when nobody else would. Am I ready to begin something new? “Definitely.”
Logan
“That’s just sick, Abby.” In a portion of the finished basement of the Youngs’ house, West kicks Abby’s foot as he passes her then drops into the recliner in front of the large flat-screen television. He tosses an Xbox controller to Noah then turns on the console. “You’re defying the natural order of things.”
On the couch beside me, Abby eats her third plate of food. She had the first two during dinner and she just warmed up this plate a few minutes ago. West is referring to Abby mixing her mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. It’s odd, but it’s Abby.
“Don’t remember asking for you opinion, Young,” she says.
“Don’t remember saying you could bring a rodent into my house.”
“It’s a bunny, not a rodent and you moved out. I moved in. House rules belong to me now. And his name is Thumper and I’m going to train him to become the general of my bunny armies that are going to take over the world. I had a lot of downtime in juvie so I have th
is figured out. Better be my friend or you’ll be sorry.”
West’s only response is a grin as he attacks a zombie on the screen. It was his conversations with his mother and father that convinced them to grant Abby the shot she needs to make a decent life for herself.
The party that was loud about an hour before has quieted down. Most of our commotion was from laughter as everyone caught Abby up on what she missed while she was in juvie.
There was a story of how Noah was stuck in some small town in Kansas when his bus broke down on his way to see his now fiancée, Echo, in Colorado. He survived off vending-machine food for over twenty-four hours. Ryan and Beth talked about how they got caught making out in his college team’s dugout. Beth told the story. Ryan was the one that smiled and turned red while she talked.
In the end, everyone had a story. Eager to catch Abby up. Eager for us to start fresh.
It’s late. Chris and his girlfriend Lacy left fifteen minutes ago. Chris is up early and works hard until late. Working on a farm, there’s no day off, but he enjoys it and there’s not much more you can ask out of life than to like your job.
No one else seems eager to leave and the night has moved into a mellowed comfortable state. Noah and West play Xbox games against Ryan and another friend of ours, Jax. I go to school with him, Rachel, Ethan and, starting in January, Abby. Ethan transferred over with Rachel, not wanting to be separated from her. Jax and West are tight and just because of how this group works, we’ve all become family. Rachel, Ethan, Jax, and I found the table Abby had mentally staked in the lunchroom and it’s been ours since the first day, just waiting for her to return.
Leaning on the massive oak bar surrounded by glass hutches, Echo, Beth, and Haley laugh at something Ethan says causing their guys to glance over at the group. The three girls are giving Ethan dating advice. I’ve snorted at over half of it, thinking it sounds insane, but I’d bet girls know better than me what another girl is looking for in a good first date.
A real first date... I pause. I need to take Abby out on one of those. Guess I should start taking notes.
The game on the TV continues, but I don’t miss how Noah’s gaze lingers on Echo. She’s been studying art in Colorado since late August. Noah and I have gotten to know each other better over the past few months. Both of us missing the girls we love.
But Echo is back in town for the Christmas break and the two of them have plans to be married when they graduate from college in two years, and Abby is back in the real world with me. Life has a way of working out.
Abby finishes her food, sets the empty plate on the table, and then scoots closer to me, easing her legs over my lap. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her since she walked in. It’s Abby. Her chestnut hair is longer, her hazel eyes a bit more hesitant, she’s lost some weight, looks like she could sleep for a year, but it’s her. Still gorgeous. Still dangerous. Still Abby.
It’s like she’s a dream and I’m scared to move too quickly or say too much or then she’ll vanish.
“Not really sure what the make-out rule is here,” she admits.
We both look over to the other side of the basement where Isaiah is on another couch with Rachel wrapped around him. Lights are off in that direction and I’d bet their kissing.
“Seems rather loose,” I say.
“All the same,” she says. “I don’t want to mess this one up.”
“You okay if I hold you?” I ask.
Abby releases that heart-stopping smile and slides until she fits perfectly onto my lap. But the moment she settles into me, she jumps and I grab hold of her before she can retreat. I know what she’s thinking, have an idea of what she might have felt.
I permit her to edge away just enough so I can pull up my shirt and expose the pump strapped to my stomach. It’s a few weeks old to me, but other than through email, new to her.
Abby delicately brushes her fingertips against the skin near the insulin pump. “Does it hurt?”
I shake my head, but her touch is burning me up. Going from a few months of not touching her at all to having her scent surrounding me and her warmth teasing me might kill me.
“Did it hurt when they did the procedure?” she asks.
“No.”
“Do you like it?” Abby’s forehead furrows as she studies the buttons, the screen, and then the tube that connects the pump to inside my body. Abby’s aware this was a tough choice for me and I can tell she’s trying to be careful with the conversation and her exploration.
“Some days yes. Some days no. More days I like it than not.”
“Fair enough.” Abby’s caress leaves the general area of my insulin pump and wanders to my chest.
“What happened to playing it safe?” I ask.
She laughs. “You’re the one that lifted your shirt.”
I lower it, she scowls, and I kiss her lips. Not long, but long enough that I miss her taste when I pull away. Long enough that I’m already thinking of kissing her again.
Her eyebrows rise and that mischievous glint that I’ve missed lights up in her eyes. “What happens to the pump when we make out? Like when we ditch here and we can seriously kiss like we’re supposed to?”
Those words hit me straight like a defibrillator and conjure up images of my hands on Abby’s skin. “If it gets in the way, I can remove it.”
“Is that hard to do?” she asks.
“No. Can do it now if you want.”
“Will that mess up your insulin?”
“Could.”
“Then no.” Abby sags and it’s not in a bad way. It’s the way that says the turkey just caught up to her. Possibly the past six months have caught up to her. “Will you take me to see my Grams?”
First place I planned on taking her was the cemetery. Figured that’s where she’d want to go. “Yeah.”
Abby flexes her socked toes then meets my eyes. “Do you mind if I go to sleep?”
I go to move so she can head upstairs, but Abby places a hand on my arm. “I mean with you. Do you mind if I fall asleep on you?”
Kissing Abby is heaven. Knowing we’ll be very alone soon is even better, but so is knowing that she’s here with me and I can hold her while she sleeps. Be the first person she sees when she opens her eyes. Life is how it’s supposed to be.
I kick off my shoes, lie on the couch, stretch out my arms and hug Abby tight to me as she cuddles in, closes her eyes, and drifts off to sleep.
* * * * *
Don’t miss NOWHERE BUT HERE, the first book in the THUNDER ROAD series, available now from Katie McGarry and Harlequin TEEN!
And read on for an exclusive sneak peek of book two, WALK THE EDGE...
Walk the Edge
by Katie McGarry
Razor
There are lies in life we accept. Whether it’s for the sake of ignorance, bliss, or, in my case, survival, we all make our choices.
I choose to belong to the Reign of Terror motorcycle club. I choose to work for the security company associated with them, and I’ve never given a thought about carrying a gun for the position. I also choose to do this while still in high school.
All of this boils down to one choice in particular—whether or not to believe my father’s version of a lie or the town’s. I chose my father’s lie. I chose the brotherhood of the club.
What I haven’t chosen? Being harassed by the man invading my front porch. He’s decked out in a pair of pressed khakis and a button-down straight from a mall window. The real question—is he here by choice or did he draw the short stick?
“As I said, son,” he continues, “I’m not here to talk to your dad. I’m here to see to you.”
A hot August wind blows in from the thick woods surrounding our house, and sweat forms on the guy’s skin. He’s too cocky to be nervous, so that dumps
the blame for his shiny forehead on the hundred and ten degree heat index.
“You and I,” he adds, “we need to talk.”
My eyes flash to the detective badge hanging on the guy’s hip and then to his dark blue unmarked Chevy Caprice parked in front of my motorcycle in the gravel drive. Twenty bucks he thinks he blocked me in. Guess he underestimated the fact that I’ll ride on the grass to escape.
This guy doesn’t belong to our police force. His plates suggest he’s from Jefferson County. That’s in the northern part of Kentucky. I live in a small town where even the street hustlers and police know each other by name. This man—he’s an outsider.
I flip through my memory for anything that would justify his presence. Yeah, I stumbled into some brawls over the summer. A few punches thrown at guys who didn’t keep their mouths sealed or their inflated egos on a leash, but nothing that warrants this visit.
A bead of water drips from my wet hair onto the worn gray wood of the deck and his eyes track it. I’m fresh from a shower. Jeans on. Black boots on my feet. No shirt. Hair on my head barely pushed around by a towel.
The guy checks out the tats on my chest and arms. Most of it is club designs, and it’s good for him to know who he’s dealing with. As of last spring, I officially became a member of the Reign of Terror. If he messes with one of us, he messes with us all.
“Are you going to invite me in?” he asks.
I thought the banging on the door was one of my friends showing to ride along with me to senior orientation, not a damned suit with a badge.
“You’re not in trouble,” he says, and I’m impressed he doesn’t shuffle his feet like most people do when they arrive on my doorstep. “As I said, I want to talk.”
I maintain eye contact longer than most men can manage. Silence doesn’t bother me. There’s a ton you can learn about a person from how they deal with the absence of sound. Most can’t handle uncomfortable battles for dominance, but this guy stands strong.
Without saying a word, I walk into the house and permit the screen door to slam in his face. I cross the room, grab my cut off the table then snatch a black Reign of Terror T-shirt off the couch. I shrug into the shirt as I step onto the porch and shut the storm door behind me.