32. Haven
Chapter Thirty-Two
Haven
As soon as her mother heads back to the New Harvest table, I get the girl’s attention. “Kaitlyn.”
I say her name with enough quiet urgency that she stops and comes over to me.
I hold up the piece of paper. “I think we might have something to talk about.”
The colour drains from her face.
“I’m not mad at you,” I promise her. “I think I understand why you did it. We’re similar, you and me.”
Her mouth tightens mulishly. “We aren’t the same kind of person.”
She might feel differently when she’s twenty-nine.
“Still, I think you should hear me out. Or I’ll have to talk to someone else about the notes you’ve been leaving. Your parents?”
She shakes her head. “Please don’t.”
“You really scared me, you know.”
Her expression turns sullen, and she looks away.
I soften my tone. “Did you want to scare me? Or did you have another goal?”
“I don’t have to answer your questions.” She steps back as a group spills out of the baking tent. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to be seen with you.”
“If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to either your parents or my uncle. Or the police.”
Maybe she didn’t expect that from me. But my steely tone works, because she reluctantly nods. But then her mother calls her name.
“I can’t right now,” she hisses.
I think about the community area where the New Harvest table is.
“I’ll follow you and wait at the picnic tables under the trees by the parking lot.
There aren’t any lights there. Find a way to come see me.
I’ll wait thirty minutes, but if you don’t show up to hear me out, I’m going to Sheriff Lane. ”
She doesn’t say for sure that she’ll meet me there, but her face falls, and as she runs toward the New Harvest table, I think I’ve finally gotten through to her that I’m not exactly what she expected.
My heart squeezes with regret and frustration as I see her race off.
And then I see Cash charge out of the baking tent.
I’m right here, I want to say.
But I can’t tell him that it was a sixteen-year-old girl who ignited this whole mess. Not yet. I think she’s reachable, and he’ll be furious.
I know that his over-protective instincts are how he expresses his love, but it’s not what I want from him.
Hot tears prick at my eyelids as I melt into the shadows. Just another summer night I wish I got to experience very differently, one of many over the last twenty-nine years.
I take the long route to the parking lot so he doesn’t see me, so nobody knows where I am. After years of resenting how invisible I felt, I’m oddly glad for my ability to disappear tonight.
The part of the parking lot right behind the line of information booths is full of vehicles from those tables. Trucks and vans that arrived early to set up, and won’t leave until the fair is over. Nobody is coming and going.
I look around, waiting for Kaitlyn, hoping she’ll show up. I think about being sixteen and frightened and full of questions I was taught to be ashamed of, and about what I would have needed someone to say to me.
A vehicle door slams open, making me jump.
I twist around, catching movement in the shadows.
But it isn’t Kaitlyn.
It’s Jeb.
He’s smiling, but it makes me take a step back anyway. I bump into a picnic table, and he holds up his hands. “It’s good to see you here. You don’t need to be scared.”
The air leaves my lungs all at once.
It’s not Cash that Kaitlyn is enamored with. It’s not because I kissed Cash that she is mad at me for being a slut.
I would bet anything that before I returned to Dragonfly Creek, Jeb was always making Kaitlyn feel special. Singular.
And then I came back, and that probably changed in an instant.
Hearing her parents talk about my return wouldn’t have helped.
“You,” I stammer.
“Me?” His smile grows. “What does that mean?”
“Did Kaitlyn talk to you?”
“Kaitlyn Pelley?” He manages to look confused, but there’s a brightness in his eyes, giving him away. “She’s a good girl. Faithful.”
“She’s less than half your age,” I bite out.
“What are you suggesting?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying.”
“I don’t.”
I forgot how patient he could be. “Will you ask her to marry you?”
He sighs. “You have strayed so far. It’s his terrible influence, isn’t it?”
“Don’t talk about Cash.” The words lash out of me. I don’t mean to sound that defensive, but it has an accidental effect of getting under Jeb’s skin.
Good.
I grab the corner of the picnic table, ready to launch myself off it and push past him as soon as I say my piece here. “He’s ten times the man you will ever be.”
“He’s a criminal.”
“And what part did you play in that?” That’s a question I should have asked much, much sooner. “Did you put your hand on that scale? The way you manipulated me? The way you’re probably manipulating Kaitlyn now?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, no. You don’t get to tell me to be quiet. Cash and I didn’t do anything to you, or that girl.” I take a step toward him. “You disgust me.”
He catches me by the arm. “Stay.”
I yank free. “I don’t think I will.”
He grabs at me again. “I won’t let you ruin everything.”
I evade him, but I overcorrect and go spinning.
And that’s when I see the New Harvest van parked in the shadows, the side door already open.
I gasp, Cash’s name on the tip of my tongue, ready to split the air with a scream, and Jeb’s arm snaps around me, his hand covering my mouth.
“Don’t,” he says softly. “You’ll just make everything worse.”