Hearts of Fire

  “You see a lot of light in the world,” Jack said finally, his face drawn into a perturbed expression. He flipped to the next page, and I knew he’d come to the drawing of him because he paused, dark eyes taking it in. I bit on my fingernails, waiting.

  He tilted his head to the side and held the sketchpad out to look at the picture from a different angle. Then he glanced at me and back to the sketchpad before cocking a brow.

  “This is how I look to you?” he asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” I croaked.

  He was staring at the picture again, and almost in slow motion, I saw his lips curve into a smile. It was the most goose-bump-inducing, belly-tingling, heart-fluttering smile I’d ever witnessed. He closed the sketchpad and handed it back to me, then placed a kiss on the top of my head.

  “You’re a great artist, Lille,” he said, and then made his way to the front of the camper without another word. I was still standing there when the engine started running and we were on the road again. I stumbled a little and steadied myself on the bed before sitting down. What he said had been so simple, and yet it felt like just a few words from him, telling me that I didn’t actually suck, had legitimised me. For the first time in my life, I felt real.

  I could officially tick number nine off my list. Wow.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there when I finally managed to draw myself out of my thoughts. Looking around Jack’s room, I saw a tall, narrow wardrobe, some drawers, and a couple of shelves built into the wall. On the shelves was an array of books. I leaned closer to read the spines and found that they were all books for kids and teenagers. Adventure novels. Fantasy. Science Fiction. The only book that wasn’t a novel was a big, hardback, well-worn Oxford English dictionary. Randomly, I pulled out a paperback and flipped through the pages. It was curious that there wasn’t a single adult book in his entire collection.

  I noticed that certain words had been underlined with a pencil. Words like “abolish,” “eschew,” “contrite,” and “gregarious.” They were the kind of words you wouldn’t really consider using until you were older and more learned, but still, any fully grown adult would at least have a decent idea of what they meant. It struck me that Jack must have been underlining them so he could go and look them up later.

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted another book on his bedside dresser. It was a brand-new copy of Great Expectations, and I immediately remembered how I’d told Jack it was my favourite work of Dickens. I picked it up and found that a receipt had been tucked into the inside cover. It was for a shop back in Caen, the date showing he’d bought it just a few days ago. The bookmark told me he was just over a hundred pages in. Had he bought this because I’d mentioned it? The thought made my chest feel too full.

  Slotting the book back onto the dresser, I went and joined him, sitting down in the passenger seat.

  “You took your time,” he noted, glancing at me sideways.

  “Yeah, well, I’m a little put out by you bulldozing your way into my artwork,” I said with humour.

  The shape of his lips told me he was almost smiling. “You’re very talented, Lille. You don’t need to be self-conscious about it.”

  “Hmm, that doesn’t make me feel much better about the invasion of privacy,” I sniffed, heavy on the dramatics, while on the inside I was delighted. I had a feeling that compliments from Jack McCabe were few and far between. And what was seldom was wonderful in my book.

  “Stop being moody,” he chastised me playfully, and then went quiet for a second. “What are you going to do with the picture of me when you’re done with it?”

  “I hadn’t planned that far ahead yet.”

  A frisky gleam came into his eye. “I think you should hang it over your bed. For inspiration.”

  He said this with such a straight tone that I didn’t get his meaning at first. When I did, I blushed like crazy and focused my attention out the window. “You know what, Jack McCabe, you’re a sneaky little flirt sometimes.”

  He seemed to enjoy my assessment, because he was smiling full-on now, never taking his eyes off the road. A little while passed in quiet before I spoke again.

  “I saw all your books in your room. You must really love reading.”

  His face grew wary, and he shifted in his seat, hands flexing on the steering wheel. “Reading helps to kill time when I’m on the road.”

  I nodded. “You also underline the words to look them up later, right? That’s a really good idea. I hate it when I come across a word I don’t know but forget to look it up.”

  Jack let out a long breath. “That’s not really it.”

  “No?”

  He shook his head. “I have gaps in my education. Well, not so much gaps as one big gap. My schooling basically stopped after my parents died. I only really began reading again a couple of years ago, so I look up the words I haven’t come across before.”

  I furrowed my brow. “But how can that be? You went to live with a foster family. Didn’t they send you to school?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?” I shifted closer in my seat, giving him my full attention now. I felt like I was being nosy, asking all these questions, but I couldn’t seem to hold back my curiosity.

  “I went to school some days, but Frances never really enforced it, and if you tell a teenage boy he doesn’t have to go to school, more often than not he isn’t going to go. Other days, Frances kept me at home for other reasons.” He trailed off, staring dead ahead. I got the feeling he was somewhere else for a moment.

  My face must have shown my incredulity, because I seriously couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That’s completely fucked up. I don’t understand how she got away with that.”

  What I really wanted to do was ask about those “other reasons,” but I had a feeling he’d evade answering me. Plus, there was something in the way he said it that gave me a sick sensation in my belly.

  “Frances got away with a lot of things. Until she didn’t anymore.”

  There was a chilling tone to his voice that put me on edge. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but no words came. Somehow, I felt like I didn’t want to know the rest of the story. I went quiet and was surprised when Jack spoke.

  “I read those books to improve my writing and grammar, but also because they’re an escape. They’re not like real life. In the stories I read, the bad people get what’s coming to them. In the real world, that’s not always the case.”

  I stared at him, a lump in my throat, and my heart broke a little. He was a small boy again, the one I caught glimpses of every now and again before the strong, impenetrable man returned.

  “That’s true. You know, I can read The Witches by Roald Dahl over and over again, and it never gets old. It’s like the perfect comfort read, a hug in a book.”

  He shook his head in amusement at my use of “hug in a book” and kept on driving.

  “I also saw you’re reading Great Expectations. I feel like I should warn you that there isn’t exactly a happy ending to that one. It’s a little bit tragic, actually.”

  His body tensed for a moment, but all he said was, “Yeah, okay.”

  I wondered if he was embarrassed for me to know he’d bought it because I’d said it was my favourite. He had no need to be, but still, I let the subject drop all the same. We were a little bit behind the others due to our unexpected stop, but I could see the long string of campers and trucks in the distance, so I knew we were almost caught up to them.

  When we reached Orléans, I stared out the window in fascination at the buildings and the old stone bridge with arches beneath that crossed over the river. The view made my heart excited. It was just so French. Right then I wished I hadn’t destroyed my phone because I wanted to look up the city, read about what there was to see here. I guessed Jack knew just as little as I did about the place, even though I suspected he’d been there before, because when I asked him the name of the river we were crossing, he only shrugged.
>
  Everywhere was just another place to him. It made me a little bit sad.

  In a complete contrast to the last site we’d been camped in, which was on a country road, we were now smack bang in the middle of civilisation in what appeared to be a large empty car park.

  “Can I use your phone for a minute?” I asked Jack as he pulled in behind Marina’s camper.

  He glanced at me, and then without a word opened the glove compartment and rummaged through it, fishing out his phone. When he handed it to me, I realised I wouldn’t be doing any Googling, because it was at least ten years old.

  “Who are you calling?” he asked.

  “Um, nobody. Never mind,” I replied, and handed it back to him.

  He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “I wanted to use the Internet, and your phone is from the Stone Age, Jack.”

  “Well, it’s a phone, isn’t it?”

  His simple reply made me laugh, and when I saw his face, I realised he thought I was laughing at him.

  “Being a snob doesn’t suit you, Lille.”

  I quickly sobered and reached for his arm, but he drew away. “That’s not what I was implying. I actually think it’s refreshing. Everybody’s so over-connected these days.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know anything about that, would I? I’m just a barely literate slumdog living in the fucking Stone Age.”

  I stared at him, mouth open, not understanding how he could take offense so easily, how his mood could turn so swiftly. Was I being snobbish? If I was, I hadn’t meant to be. He got up and walked to the back of the camper, opening the fridge and pulling out a carton of orange juice. I made my way toward him as he drank, and said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

  He pulled the carton from his mouth, swallowed, and glanced at me. “You should probably go check on Lola. See how she’s feeling.”

  Well, I knew dismissal when I heard it. A lump forming in my throat, I shot him a final apologetic look before turning and leaving the van. When I got to Violet’s camper, Lola was fast asleep in our room, snoring loudly, and Violet was on the floor in the lounge, her body bent into a crab position. It looked almost painful but was clearly effortless to her. She only gave me a nod in greeting. I was beginning to learn that, like a lot of the people in this circus, Violet was an odd character. Sometimes she’d have a conversation with you, even joke around, and then other times she wouldn’t talk to you at all.

  Later that night when I went to the gazebo for something to eat, I chatted with Marina for a while, letting her know that Lola wasn’t well and that I’d fill in for her if she wasn’t up to working tomorrow night. I noticed Pedro watching me again from the other end of the long table, his face hard like before. He sat by himself, eating a bowl of stew and listening to us as we spoke. I didn’t see any sign of Jack, but I did get a death glare from Julie as she passed by the table with her sisters. Today was definitely not my day.

  Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.

  As I was leaving, I filled a bowl for Lola and brought it back to the camper van. She was awake when I got there and had just enough energy to eat before she fell asleep again. It was definitely looking like she had the flu, and I resigned myself to sleeping on the sofa that night, since I didn’t want to catch it.

  After the way I’d left things with Jack, I felt unsettled. I couldn’t seem to sit still, so I decided to go find him and make amends. Running what I’d said about his phone through my head again, I realised that I had been a bit of a snob. His camper van was dark on the inside, and when I knocked on the door, I got no answer. I wished I had a phone so that I could call him and made a note to buy a cheap one in town the next day. Disappointed, I started walking back when I caught sight of him leaving the gazebo, headed towards the street.

  Picking up my pace, I followed, cupping my hands around my mouth and calling out his name, but the traffic was too loud, and he couldn’t hear me. He was so tall that I could easily pick him out in the distance and so I kept following him. The tricky part came in when I reached a large open square that reminded me of an Italian piazza. In no time I’d lost him and found myself standing in front of a restaurant. Some men sat outside, smoking cigarettes and drinking fancy European-looking beers. They wore business suits, their ties loosened, signalling that they were off duty.

  When one of them gave me a look up and down and called me over, I began walking away hurriedly, not wanting the attention. I already felt vulnerable, all alone in a strange city at night with no phone and very little money. When I tried going back the way I came, I realised I must have made a wrong turn somewhere because I didn’t recognise the street. A group of teenagers walked by me, and I knew I appeared distraught because they gave me curious looks. In usual teenage fashion, though, none of them offered to help.

  I had a vague feeling that I was going in the right direction, but I realised I was wrong when I’d been walking for ten minutes and still didn’t recognise where I was. Why the hell had I left the circus without even asking what street we were on?

  I stood outside a newsagents, folding my arms across my chest because it was getting cold and I had no coat. I was just about to stop a woman I saw approaching me and ask for help when a hand landed on my shoulder. I yelped at the unexpected contact and turned around, relief flooding me when I saw it was Jack.

  That relief only lasted a moment when I saw the look of anger on his face.

  Ten

  An attack led them astray

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he fumed, his hand on my shoulder steering me across the street where a tram was just pulling up to the stop. Jack led me onto it, pushing me right up into the opposite door and glaring down at me. My back hit the glass, my heart going ninety. The carriage was by no means full, but there were a couple of people giving us wary glances.

  I was focusing on looking anywhere but Jack’s eyes because they were scary right then. So black. I noticed he had a plastic bag dangling over one arm that contained a carton of milk, bread, and a packet of cigarettes. So yeah, I’d obviously been following him on a trip to the grocery shop and had gotten myself lost in the process. Still, I couldn’t understand why he was this mad. Mild irritation I’d expect, but this level of pissed off was way over the top.

  Telling him I’d been following him would only worsen his temper, so I lied. “I was taking a walk. I wanted to see the city.”

  “You wanted to see the city at eleven o’clock at night? Wouldn’t it have been wiser to wait until morning?”

  I bristled. “Probably.”

  “And if you were only taking a walk, then why did I find you huddled outside a newsagents looking like you were ready to have a panic attack?”

  As he spoke, his body moved closer and closer to mine. Now his hips had me penned in place, one arm braced above my head and his broad chest in my face. I tried to keep my tone light-hearted.

  “‘Huddled’ is a bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it? And okay, I may have lost my way. I was just about to ask for directions when you showed up. Lucky that,” I said, and winked at him. Winked. At. Him. Why the hell did my brain think that was a clever thing to do? Jack frowned at me, a look I was beginning to recognise as him thinking I was being weird. Then he let out a long breath.

  “You don’t know this city. Next time you want to go for a stroll, ask me to take you. Then, once you know where you’re going, you can wander all you like, though not at night. That’s just asking for trouble.”

  There was something about the way he spoke to me that ruffled my feathers. Maybe I just didn’t like people telling me what to do. I stood straighter, lifted my chin, and pushed him out of the way. His body moved, though I was certain that if he hadn’t wanted to, my pushing would have been pointless.

  “I’m not an idiot, so don’t talk to me like I am,” I said firmly. I’d spent my entire life being spoken down to by my mother. I wasn’t going to start letting someone else do it. Especially not Jack.

  “Well, y
ou sure seem to act like one sometimes,” he shot back, and I saw red.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  I stared at him without blinking, and he stared right back. My arms were folded tight across my chest like steel, and I had the distinct urge to make a fist so I could punch him. This man was so aggravating.

  “Are you being mean because of what I said earlier about your phone? Because if that’s the case, then I apologise again. I didn’t realise you were so sensitive.”

  Okay, so I was goading him, but he had it coming. In an instant he was in my space, and this time the tension practically radiated off him. His hands went to my neck, his thumbs stroking my throat, and God, I was already turned on. He had that effect on me. Hell, maybe I got off on fighting with him. It really wouldn’t surprise me if I did.

  He bent to bring his face level with mine and spoke slowly. “‘Sensitive’ is the last word anyone would use to describe me, flower, but keep poking, see how long it takes for me to snap.” His voice was low and cutting, but so erotic, and the subtle edge of a threat had my every pore alight and tingling.

  “Seems like you’ve snapped already,” I whispered so quietly I’m sure he only heard because he was so close.

  “If you think that’s snapping, then you don’t know me at all.”

  “That’s right, I don’t.” I paused before continuing bravely, “But I want to.”

  His mouth twisted, and he began to shake his head; for a second there was a tortured expression on his face. “No, you don’t.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want.”

  He dropped his shoulders so his forehead rested against mine, and I could feel him breathing. “Seeing you like that, alone, panicking, pissed me off, okay? I’m sorry for lashing out.”