Her heart twisted a little. “You don’t, Kevin, and I’m...I’m not anyone’s girl.”
He reached for her, but she stepped away. “Please, don’t—”
His lips flattened suddenly. “No one’s girl, eh? Oh, right. You’re your own woman, going places, off to see the world.” When she didn’t answer, he cast her a disdainful look filled with pain and anger. “Who’re you kidding, Carlie? You don’t have any more chance of getting out of this hellhole of a town than the rest of us. You’re trapped, baby, just like everyone else.”
Trembling a little at the fierceness in his tone, she stepped backward and nearly fell off the dock. She had to scramble to maintain her balance.
“Kevin!” Ben’s voice thundered from the parking lot and Carlie wanted to die.
Kevin’s expression turned ugly as he watched his younger brother run to the dock. “Big mistake, Carlie,” he said, turning back to her and stripping the towel from her fingers. His gaze raked down her body. “If you really want to get out, you’d better not tie yourself down. Especially not to Ben. He’ll break your damned heart.” With that piece of advice he dropped the towel and strode down the planks of the dock and met his brother who was running toward the pier.
“She’s all yours,” Kevin said with a dismissive motion of his head.
“I’m not anyone’s!” she insisted again, though her face burned with shame.
“Carlie—”
Ben’s voice followed her as she turned and dived into the clear, cold water of the lake. Damn the Powell boys. Both of them. Who did they think they were, snarling over her like two tigers coveting a prized piece of meat? Why couldn’t she just forget them both? Kevin was bad news and everyone told her that getting involved with Ben would be courting disaster. The writing was already on the wall.
The water caressed her skin and she swam under the surface, determined to put as much distance between herself and anyone named Powell. Who needed them, she thought, and her heart tugged a little as her lungs began to burn. She kicked upward, through the cool depths and, as her head broke the surface, gasped for air. Treading water she looked back at the dock and saw Ben kicking off his shoes.
She felt a little shiver of anticipation as he looked her way and stripped off his shirt. Her throat tightened as he dived neatly into the water and started swimming her way. She had two choices: swim toward him or toward the opposite shore. Gauging the distance, and the rate he was plowing through the water, she knew she didn’t have a prayer of reaching the distant bank. Still, she could give him a good run for his money.
Again she dived under the surface and swam toward the middle of the lake, but at an angle, toward the Fitzpatrick place. Within a minute her lungs began to ache, but she kept going and only surfaced when she was starved for air and her lungs were on fire.
Her head emerged and she saw him, still coming, swimming unerringly in her direction. With a kick, she surged away from him, but within a matter of minutes, he was next to her, his hands sliding against her wet skin, his fingers surrounding her arms.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked between gasps.
“This.” His lips found hers and he tasted of salt and clear water. She had to tread water to stay afloat.
Kicking away from him, she said, “I don’t appreciate your getting your big brother’s approval to—”
He pulled her roughly against him. “Kevin has nothing to do with us.” He kissed her again, and wound his arms around her torso. His body was hot and wet against hers and her heart beat anxiously to a new and wild drum.
“We’ll drown out here.”
He lifted his head and smiled, a flash of white so devilish that her heart turned over. “I’ll keep you safe, Carlie,” he vowed. “Come on.” He pulled gently on her hand before letting go and swimming back to the dock. With only a second’s hesitation, she followed him, swimming in his wake, feeling the ripples splash her face and knowing that she was beginning to fall in love with him.
Not now! her mind screamed. She had plans for her life and those plans didn’t include being tied to a hometown boy. But he was different and changed her way of thinking. He wanted to see the world—he’d said as much. Maybe they could see it together.
By the time she reached the dock she was exhausted. He helped her onto the weathered planks and they sat together, side by side, not touching, breathing hard and listening to the sound of crickets and frogs over the constant lapping of the lake.
“Listen, Ben,” she said, when she could finally speak again, “I don’t like you talking about me to anyone. Especially Kevin.”
“I didn’t.”
“He seems to think we were going together or something.” She didn’t add that he said he had loved her.
“Are we?”
The question hung between them, unanswered and she dragged her toes through the water. “You tell me,” she finally said.
He smiled then and chased away all the doubts in her heart as he kissed her. But he never answered her question.
* * *
“THOSE POWELL BOYS are trouble,” Weldon Surrett said as he cleaned his hunting rifle and offered his daughter some unrequested advice. They were seated on the back deck, he drinking a beer, she sipping a tart lemonade. The sun had set, a few stars winked in the sky and the lights of Gold Creek cast a glow into the bank of heavy clouds that were rolling in from the west. “I think you’d best avoid both the boys.”
“Who says they’re trouble?”
“Ever’body. Now, the old man, George, he’s okay. Worked every day of his life for the sawmill, but Kevin’s always complaining and showing up late for work. Got the reputation of a troublemaker. I’ll just bet his brother’s the same.” He paused to light a cigarette and let it dangle from his lips.
“You don’t work at the mill and besides, just because two people are related doesn’t meant they think the same. Look at you and Uncle Sid,” she said, feeling a need to defend Ben. They’d started dating just this past week and tonight was the third night they were scheduled to go out to a new action movie at the twin cinemas in Coleville. Obviously her father thought she and Ben were becoming too close.
“But half the people in this town get their paychecks from Monroe Sawmill and our trucks take logs over to the mill all day long. The drivers see and hear things and word filters back. Kevin’s a pain in the backside. Always has been. Got himself an attitude that nearly cost him his job a couple of times. The only reason he’s still there is Monroe seems to like George. I was worried when you first dated him and I was relieved that it ended so quickly.”
“There was nothing there, Dad. We only went out a couple of times.”
He drew hard on his cigarette and let smoke drift from his nose. “But now you’re with the other kid. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, if you ask me.” He took a long swallow from his glass and called over his shoulder. “Thelma, how about another beer?”
“How about you gettin’ it yourself and helping with these dishes?”
“I’ll get it.” Carlie was glad for an excuse to avoid another lecture. She walked through the sliding door into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Leave the dishes, Mom. I’ll do ’em.”
Her mother smiled. “You vacuum tomorrow. I’ll take care of the dishes.”
“It’s a deal.” Carlie popped the cap of a can of beer and walked back outside.
“Thanks,” her father said as he stubbed out his cigarette. He poured the brew into his glass, took a sip and set his drink on the table. “Now, about the Powell boy—”
“Dad, please.”
“It’s not a good idea to date brothers—” He picked up his rifle again and ran his fingers along the barrel.
“I already told you, Ben and Kevin are different.”
Her father opened the Remington, snapped it shut and hoisted it to his shoulder, where he squinted through the sight. With a satisfied grunt, he set the rifle on the small table. “Just be careful, honey. Boys are territorial
and dating two brothers is—”
“Asking for trouble, I know. Believe me, I’ve heard the lecture. About a million times,” Carlie said as thunderclouds rumbled in the distance.
“Good. Then maybe you learned something. Looks like it might rain.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, I saw Thomas Fitzpatrick today and he asked about you.”
Carlie squirmed a little. “He’s still mad ’cause I stood up for Rachelle and Jackson.”
“He didn’t seem angry,” Weldon said thoughtfully as he gazed over the railing. “He just asked what you planned to do after the summer’s over.”
She tried to ignore the little chill that scurried down her spine. “I think he might offer you a job,” Weldon said hopefully. “You could work for him and go to the community college. Give up all those crazy notions of yours about New York City.”
“He wouldn’t give me a job.”
“Oh, I think he might,” Weldon argued. Then as if an unpleasant thought had come to mind, he frowned and snagged his beer. “Sometimes he takes a special interest in a kid from town, helps him out with jobs and loans for college. That sort of thing.”
“Helps him out?”
“Or her,” Weldon said.
“Has he ever helped out a girl before?” she asked, suddenly uneasy. She’d felt the weight of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s stare at company picnics or in church and it made her feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t know.” He reached for his pack of cigarettes, found it empty and crumpled the cellophane wrapper in his big hand. He settled on his chewing tobacco instead and twisted open the can. “Come to think of it, I can’t say I ever heard of him working with a girl.”
“So why would he want to help me?”
“Maybe ’cause you’re my daughter.” Her father contemplated his tin of tobacco. “Who knows? I’m just sayin’ we can’t afford to look a gift horse in the mouth.” Placing the tobacco next to his gum, he rubbed his lip pensively. “You didn’t win yourself any points by sidin’ with Jackson Moore, but then, Thomas has probably figured it’s time to let bygones be bygones.”
Carlie wasn’t convinced. Thomas Fitzpatrick’s memory was long and hard. Few people ever crossed him and though she respected him as her father’s employer, there was something about Fitzpatrick that bothered her. She hadn’t admitted as much to Ben, of course, when the subject had come up because Fitzpatrick had been good to her family. However, the truth was that she still felt uncomfortable around him. He looked at her a few seconds too long when he didn’t think she noticed and his gaze had drifted from her face to her chest and lower more than once.
“Well, I think I’ll check on the news,” her father said, grabbing his rifle and walking inside, but Carlie watched as the night turned black and she shivered despite the day’s heat that lingered.
Chapter Four
“YOU’RE DOING WHAT?” Ben couldn’t believe his ears.
“I’m gonna marry Sam,” Nadine replied, lifting her chin a notch, daring him to argue with her before she turned her attention back to the dishes in the sink.
“Why?”
She didn’t answer, just kept wiping the plates and stacking them in the drainer. She and Ben still lived in the little house by the river with their dad. Kevin had a place of his own, and their mother... Ben didn’t want to think of Donna Powell, how she’d left her family all because of Hayden Garreth Monroe III and his scheme to fleece the Powell family out of all their life savings.
Hate burned through his veins and he stared past her through the screen door. Outside, Bonanza, his father’s yellow lab, lay in the shade of a maple tree and a bottlebrush bloomed along the porch. The garden, once a source of his mother’s pride, was overgrown and dry. Clouds filled the sky and the air filtering through the patched screen door was sultry and hot.
The Powells had once been a happy family. Ben remembered his mother playing the piano and singing as she worked in the house they had in town. She spent her afternoons in the library, earning a little extra income, but her hours had increased when George had sold their house and moved out here, by the river, to this sorry two-storied home that they rented.
The money from their home in town, the savings earmarked for retirement and children’s educations, had been invested with the almighty himself: Hayden Garreth Monroe III. Even Monroe’s rich brother-in-law, Thomas Fitzpatrick, was part of the scheme to invest in oil wells that turned out to spit only worthless sand. Everything the family had ever saved had been lost, Kevin’s dreams had died an agonizing death and he’d lost his scholarship.
Kevin had felt he had no choice but to drop out of college and follow in his father’s weary footsteps by working for Garreth Monroe. Everything that had ever gone wrong with the Powell family could be laid at the feet of the Monroes and yet Nadine had seen fit to fall in love with the heir to the Monroe wealth—Hayden Garreth Monroe IV. It hadn’t worked out, of course, and Ben was glad, though it would have been sweet irony to see Nadine marry the guy and get a little of their money back.
But Garreth had been engaged to a woman of his social standing. Ben had hoped Nadine had gotten over the jerk, but to marry Sam Warne, a boy she didn’t love? That wasn’t an answer, it was desperation. “I don’t get it,” he told her as she wiped her hands on the dish towel.
“Nothing to get.” She snapped the wet towel and folded it over the handle of the oven door.
“You set a date?”
“Not yet.”
“Good!” Ben kicked out a chair and sat down, glaring at her stiff spine. “You can’t marry the guy just because Monroe’s not interested.”
Her lips compressed and when she looked at him her green eyes sparked with self-righteous fury. “We all have our ways of getting out, don’t we, Ben?”
He didn’t answer.
“Didn’t you go visit the army recruiter today?”
“How’d you know?” All of a sudden, he was on the defensive. That was the trouble with arguing with Nadine; she had an uncanny way of turning the tables on you.
“You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out. The recruiter called today, confirming an appointment on...” She ran her finger along the calendar stuck onto the wall next to the kitchen phone. “Let’s see...Friday at—”
“I know when.”
“Good. Now, do you know when to stick your nose back into your own business? You can sit there and be my judge and jury all day long, but at least I’m not running away to the army and messing around with a woman my older brother’s in love with.”
Ben’s head jerked up. “Kevin’s not interested in Carlie.”
Nadine let out a snort of disbelief.
“He’s been seeing some girl in Coleville—”
“Tracy Niday. Yeah, I know.” She slid into the chair next to Ben and arranged the salt and pepper shakers around the napkin holder. “But they broke up and if you ask me, he fell pretty hard for Carlie. The way I see it, his interest in Tracy was all a rebound thing, because Carlie hurt him.”
“That’s not what he told me,” Ben said stubbornly. He didn’t want to believe that Kevin was emotionally entangled with Carlie. Not now. Now when he, himself, was becoming involved with her.
Nadine looked him straight in the eye and smiled sadly, as if she thought he were the most stupid beast to ever walk the earth. “You have to read between the lines, Ben. It’s hard for you, I know. You like things in black and white, no gray areas. Cut-and-dried. But that’s not how the world works.”
“And that’s why you’re gonna marry Sam, because of some gray area?”
She flushed and stared at her hands. “It just seems like the thing to do.”
“Isn’t it a ‘rebound thing’ because of Hayden Monroe?”
“It’s over between Hayden and me.”
Ben clamped his hands under his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Tell me you love Sam.”
She opened her mouth, closed it and sighed. “I’m not sure I believe in love anymore.”
“Liar. You’re still in love with that jerk Monroe, aren’t you?”
“He’s out of my life,” she said, her voice a little husky.
“So Sam’s second best.”
“Sam has always cared about me,” she said simply, lacing her fingers together and biting her lower lip.
“You’re settling, Nadine.”
Her restless green eyes lifted to meet his. “It’s my choice, isn’t it, Ben? Don’t worry about me, I’ve learned from my mistakes. Besides, I think you’ve got your own battles to fight.”
* * *
THE PARK WAS nearly empty because of the threat of a thunderstorm. Picnic tables were vacated, the barbecue pits cold, the playground equipment without children.
In a private copse of fir trees, Carlie lay on a blanket with Ben, nibbling at her sandwich of French bread, cream cheese, turkey and sprouts. They’d decided upon a picnic and a few little thunderclouds hadn’t changed their plans.
Ben had seemed quiet all afternoon. He smiled rarely, and his eyes were troubled and dark.
“Something’s bothering you,” she said, tossing pieces of bread to the ducks that were hovering near the edge of the water. With loud squawks and fluttering of wings, two vied for the delicacy.
“I’m fine.”
“What you are is a terrible liar.” Throwing the final scrap of bread to a brown mallard who had waddled close to the blanket, she glanced up at Ben. His mouth was firm and set, his jaw tight, the skin over his cheekbones stretched thin. Lying across the blanket, leaning on one elbow, he’d brooded for nearly an hour. “What gives?”
“I’m thinking of joining up.”
She didn’t think she’d heard him right. “You’re what?”
“I talked to an army recruiter today.”
The bottom dropped out of her world. “But why?”
Avoiding her eyes, he reached into a small cooler and pulled out a Coke. “Things are happening.”
“What things?”
“Nadine’s going to marry Sam Warne.”
“So?”
“So it’s a big mistake.”