Chapter 1 #2
She’d slid through the narrow opening, hung by her fingers from the sill, then softly dropped to the dusty ground below, the heat of the desert still simmering, the sun beginning to sink in the western sky.
All to meet a boy.
A boy who was probably bad news. Or worse.
But there was something about him, something that caught her attention and made the blood pound a little in her ears when his dark eyes found hers.
Even now, stuck in the sweltering cargo space, her heart trip-hammered and the back of her throat went dry at the thought of Noah Scott.
Older, with a bad-boy reputation, he was definitely not Didi-approved.
Which made him all the more attractive, she decided.
But she couldn’t help herself. God, he was sexy.
She had dreams about his hands on her body and how kissing him made her tingle all over, even in places she hadn’t realized were meant to tingle.
Stop it!
She couldn’t think about him—fantasize about him. Not when she was trapped in Didi’s Cadillac, going to God-only-knew-where.
Earlier, she’d snagged the keys to the Toyota, just after dinner, waited for Seneca to close her door, gave it another ten minutes, then slid out of the window and dropped lithely to the ground.
She’d just settled behind the wheel of the Camry (she’d taught herself to drive on the sly and was fairly adept, even though she was still only fifteen) when she spied her mother’s Caddy rounding the corner of the street leading to their driveway in this crummy part of town.
Crap!
She’d sunk down in the Toyota’s battered driver’s seat, barely peeking over the dash as Didi had driven into the garage.
Counting out three minutes in her head, she’d waited for Didi to head into the house.
The second her mother was inside, Remmi had slipped into the open garage and thought she could sneak into her room, as it was just a few steps down the short hallway.
Once Didi was past the kitchen, Remmi would be able to quietly ease the door open and make her way to the bedroom.
No one, especially her mother, would be the wiser.
She’d thought.
Listening over the thudding of her own heartbeat, Remmi had wrapped her fingers around the doorknob when she’d heard the distinctive click of Didi’s heels approaching her direction.
Crap!
Rather than try to make it outside, where, if Didi chose to lock up, Remmi wouldn’t be able to get back into the house, she’d slipped away from the garage door and silently opened a back door of the monster of a car.
Without thinking, she’d rolled into the back seat of the Caddy and engaged the secret lever Didi had installed.
The seat back had flipped down, and Remmi had forced her body into the cramped cargo space.
Without really thinking, she’d found the inside latch, and the rolled leather seat had sprung into place once more, clicking into place as Didi emerged from the house with one of the baby carriers.
Remmi, peeking through the specialized peephole, had held her breath and silently prayed, Don’t let her find me, oh, please God, don’t let her—
The Caddy’s back door flew open. Muttering to herself as she’d secured the carrier into position, Didi didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss.
She’d quickly returned to the house. Remmi had reached for the lever but never got the chance to escape.
Less than a minute after strapping in the first carrier, Didi had reappeared with the second.
Once both car seats had been locked into place, Remmi had been trapped.
Only then did she notice that Didi was dressed in her favorite Marilyn Monroe costume, all pink and shimmery. She’d climbed behind the wheel and jammed her keys into the ignition. The massive car with its huge engine had roared to life, and Didi had backed out of the garage without a word.
Five seconds later, she’d rammed the Cadillac into drive, hit the gas, and headed to the desert. With her infants strapped into the back seat of this boat of a car, and Remmi hidden in the trunk, Didi drove as if the devil himself were chasing her.
Why?
What was with the full-Marilyn regalia?
And where to?
Remmi bit her lower lip nervously.
Where the hell was she headed?
“Son of a bitch!” Noah kicked a rock hard enough for it to hit against the weathered side of the barn and bang so loudly that the dog sleeping on the porch gave a startled bark.
Roscoe, who was a mix of some kind of sheepdog and who knew what else, raised his speckled, shaggy head, yawned, wagged his stub of a tail, then settled back on the old rag rug that was his bed, his nose buried in the faded fabric, eyes bright and focused on Noah.
“It’s okay,” Noah grumbled, but it wasn’t.
Not by a long shot. Noah was itching for a fight.
He was supposed to meet a girl. Not just any girl, but a girl he’d just met the other day at the lake.
She wasn’t his usual type, was a little on the nerdy side, and young, too, but she was smart and hadn’t been intimidated by him.
The daughter of some weird showgirl, a woman impersonator, he thought.
Didi Storm. Yeah, that was the mother’s name.
Like him, the girl, Remmi, had no real dad in the picture, and he could see she would soon become a knockout.
Her brown hair was streaked a reddish gold—naturally, he’d guessed, from the blasting Nevada sun.
Freckles dusted a long but straight nose, and her eyes, somewhere between green and gold, flashed with intelligence and humor.
He’d tested her, and she could give as well as she could take.
Built tall and lean, with small breasts and hips that barely flared, she didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t as curvy as some of the girls she hung out with.
Including that bitch Mandi Preston, who, while they’d all been swimming in the lake, had made a point of pressing her impressive boobs up against him.
She was a tease, and as those massive breasts, held in place by a slip of a red bikini bra, had grazed the bare skin of his back, he’d had an immediate reaction, a hard-on forming despite the cool water.
He’d tried to hide his boner, but it had been impossible, and Mandi had known just what she’d accomplished.
It was a game with her, but he wasn’t interested in her.
Never had been. All blond tousled hair, bubblegum-pink lipstick, and high-pitched giggling, he’d found her too …
commercial? Too much like a TV bimbo? No, maybe she was just a fake.
He knew she was smarter than she pretended to be; he’d seen flashes of it, and the flirty dumb act bothered him.
Not so Remmi.
She said what was on her mind and didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought.
She’d seen the display in the lake as she’d lain on a towel and read a book.
Over the cover, she’d watched as Mandi had splashed and rubbed up against Noah.
Arching a dark eyebrow, she’d caught Noah’s eye, given her head a shake, and closed the paperback.
As she’d scooped up her towel, flip-flops, and small cooler, he’d waited for his damned cock to cooperate; then he’d followed her to the parking area.
“What?” she’d asked when she unlocked the door of a beat-up Toyota and slid into the sunbaked interior.
“I don’t know you.”
“You’re right. You don’t.” She’d jabbed her keys into the ignition.
“You got a license?” he asked. If she was sixteen, he’d be surprised.
“So how is that any of your business?” She’d flashed him a cool smile and started the engine, stomping on the gas and backing up so quickly she’d nearly hit him—he’d jumped back, just in case—then, sliding her sunglasses over that long nose, she’d nearly clipped a signpost that listed the rules of the swim park.
He wondered if she’d done it on purpose, as if she were thumbing her nose at authority.
Or maybe he’d just hoped so.
Didn’t matter. He was hooked, and he’d caught up with her twice more at the lake, bringing his own ratty towel and stretching out beside her as she pretended to read.
Maybe she was really trying. But her gaze kept straying from the pages of the paperback, a battered copy of a Stephen King novel, to the lake, where the water shimmered under the harsh sun.
Boats, sometimes pulling skiers, cut through the clear water, engines churning, frothy wakes widening behind them.
Swimmers kept closer to the shore, moms with toddlers or teenagers hanging out in packs.
Remmi came alone, most of the time.
He liked that.
In fact, he liked her.
And it surprised him.
She was, after all, jailbait, or so he’d thought.
She couldn’t be sixteen, despite the car.
She was kind of on her own, helping out with her infant siblings, working at a burger joint, and waiting for school to start.
And she liked computers, was kind of a geek when it came to the Net, something that was completely foreign to him.
Yet, he’d felt a kinship with her, as if they were both some kind of misfit. He was out of high school and fast running out of options, his job as the clean-up guy on construction sites a dead end. His life at home the same. He needed to move on. But tonight?
Remmi.
He felt a jolt of anticipation fire his blood and mentally kicked himself when his thoughts took him to imagining her warm lips and soft body. Shit, what was he thinking?
Nothing good.
Then again, not so bad.
Oh, hell, who knew? Maybe he was making a bigger deal of it than it was, but say what you will, hadn’t she agreed to meet him tonight? In a park not far from the edge of town. They planned to go dirt biking in the desert. Alone.
Despite the fact that he was supposedly grounded.