The Complete Hush, Hush Saga Page 30

  I crawled over the console, straddling his lap. I slid my hands up his chest, grasped him behind the neck, and pulled him in. His arms circled my waist, locking me against him, and I snuggled in deeper.

  Caught up in the moment, I ran my hands under his shirt, thinking only of how I loved the feel of his body heat spreading into my hands. As soon as my fingers brushed the place on his back where his wing scars used to be, a distant light exploded at the back of my mind. Perfect darkness, ruptured by one burst of blinding light. It was like watching a cosmic phenomenon in space from millions of miles away. I felt my mind being sucked inside Patch’s, into all the thousands of private memories stored there, when suddenly he took my hand and slid it lower, away from the place where his wings joined with his back, and everything spun sharply back to normal.

  “Nice try,” he murmured, his lips brushing mine as he spoke.

  I nibbled his lower lip. “If you could see into my past just by touching my back, you’d have a hard time resisting the temptation too.”

  “I have a hard time keeping my hands off you without that added bonus.”

  I laughed, but my expression quickly turned serious. Even with considerable concentration, I could hardly remember what life had been like without Patch. At night, when I lay in bed, I could remember with perfect clarity the low timbre of his laugh, the way his smile curved slightly higher on the right, the touch of his hands—hot, smooth, and delicious on my skin. But it was only with serious effort that I could pick up memories from the previous sixteen years. Maybe because those memories paled in comparison to Patch. Or maybe because there was nothing good there at all.

  “Don’t ever leave me,” I told Patch, hooking a finger in the collar of his shirt and pulling him close.

  “You’re mine, Angel,” he murmured, brushing the words across my jawbone as I arched my neck higher, inviting him to kiss everywhere. “You have me forever.”

  “Show me you mean it,” I said solemnly.

  He studied me a moment, then reached behind his neck and unclasped the plain silver chain he’d worn since the day I met him. I had no idea where the chain had come from, or the significance behind it, but I sensed it was important to him. It was the only piece of jewelry he wore, and he kept it tucked under his shirt, next to his skin. I’d never seen him take it off.

  His hands slid to the nape of my neck, where he fastened the chain. The metal fell on my skin, still warm from him.

  “I was given this when I was an archangel,” he said. “To help me discern truth from deception.”

  I fingered it gently, in awe of its importance. “Does it still work?”

  “Not for me.” He interlaced our fingers and turned my hand over to kiss my knuckles. “Your turn.”

  I twisted a small copper ring off the middle finger of my left hand and held it out to him. A heart was hand-carved into the smooth underside of the ring.

  Patch held the ring between his fingers, silently examining it.

  “My dad gave it to me the week before he was killed,” I said.

  Patch’s eyes flicked up. “I can’t take this.”

  “It’s the most important thing in the world to me. I want you to have it.” I bent his fingers, folding them around the ring.

  “Nora.” He hesitated. “I can’t take this.”

  “Promise me you’ll keep it. Promise me nothing will ever come between us.” I held his eyes, refusing to let him turn away. “I don’t want to be without you. I don’t want this to ever end.”

  Patch’s eyes were slate black, darker than a million secrets stacked on top of each other. He dropped his gaze to the ring in his hand, turning it over slowly.

  “Swear you’ll never stop loving me,” I whispered.

  Ever so slightly, he nodded.

  I gripped his collar and pulled him against me, kissing him more fervently, sealing the promise between us. I locked my fingers between his, the sharp edge of the ring biting into our palms. Nothing I did seemed to bring me close enough to him, no amount of him was enough. The ring ground deeper into my hand, until I was certain it had broken skin. A blood promise.

  When I thought my chest might collapse without air, I pulled away, resting my forehead against his. My eyes were shut, my breathing causing my shoulders to rise and fall. “I love you,” I murmured. “More than I think I should.”

  I waited for him to answer, but instead his hold on me tightened, almost protectively. He turned his head toward the woods across the road.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I heard something.”

  “That was me saying I love you,” I said, smiling as I traced his mouth with my finger.

  I expected him to return the smile, but his eyes were still fixed on the trees, which cast shifting shadows as their branches nodded in the breeze.

  “What’s out there?” I asked, following his gaze. “A coyote?”

  “Something isn’t right.”

  My blood chilled, and I slid off his lap. “You’re starting to scare me. Is it a bear?” We hadn’t seen bears in years, but the farmhouse was pushed out on the very edge of town, and bears were known to wander closer to town after hibernation, when they were hungry and searching for food.

  “Turn the headlights on and honk the horn,” I said. Training my eyes on the woods, I watched for movement. My heart edged up a little, remembering the time my parents and I had watched from the farmhouse windows as a bear rocked our car, smelling food inside.

  Behind me, the porch lights flashed. I didn’t need to turn back to know my mom was standing in the doorway, frowning and tapping her foot.

  “What is it?” I asked Patch once more. “My mom’s coming out. Is she safe?”

  He turned on the engine and put the Jeep in drive. “Go inside. There’s something I need to do.”

  “Go inside? Are you kidding? What’s going on?”

  “Nora!” my mom called, coming down the steps, her tone aggravated. She stopped five feet from the Jeep and motioned for me to lower the window.

  “Patch?” I tried again.

  “I’ll call you later.”

  My mom hauled the door open. “Patch,” she acknowledged curtly.

  “Blythe.” He gave a distracted nod.

  She turned to me. “You’re four minutes late.”

  “I was four minutes early yesterday.”

  “Rollover minutes don’t work with curfews. Inside. Now.”

  Not wanting to leave until Patch answered me, but not seeing much of a choice, I told him, “Call me.”

  He nodded once, but the singular focus to his eyes told me his thoughts were elsewhere. As soon as I was out of the car and on solid ground, the Jeep revved forward, not wasting time accelerating. Wherever Patch was going, it was in a hurry.

  “When I give you a curfew, I expect you to keep it,” Mom said.

  “Four minutes late,” I said, my tone suggesting she might be overreacting.

  That earned me a stare that had disapproval stamped all over it. “Last year your dad was killed. A couple months ago, you had your own brush with death. I think I’ve earned the right to be over-protective.” She walked stiffly back to the house, arms clamped over her chest.

  Okay, I was an unfeeling, insensitive daughter. Point taken.

  I turned my attention to the row of trees at the edge of the road opposite. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. I waited for a chill to warn me there was something back there, something I couldn’t see, but nothing felt off. A warm summer breeze rustled past, the sound of cicadas filling the air. If anything, the woods looked peaceful under the silver glow of moonlight.

  Patch hadn’t seen anything in the woods. He’d turned away because I’d said three very big, very stupid words, which had gushed out before I could stop them. What had I been thinking? No. What was Patch thinking now? Had he driven off to escape responding? I was pretty sure I knew the answer. And I was pretty sure it explained why I was left staring at the back of his Jeep.

 
; CHAPTER

  2

  FOR THE LAST ELEVEN SECONDS, I’D BEEN lying facedown, hugging my pillow over my head, trying to shut out Chuck Delaney’s traffic report from downtown Portland, which was coming through my alarm clock loud and clear. Likewise, I was trying to shut out the logical part of my brain, which shouted for me to get dressed, promising repercussions if I didn’t. But the pleasure-seeking part of my brain won out. It clung to my dream—or rather, the subject of my dream. He had wavy black hair and a killer smile. At this moment, he was sitting backward on his motorcycle and I was sitting facing forward, our knees touching. I curled my fingers into his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.

  In my dream, Patch felt it when I kissed him. Not only on an emotional level, but a real, physical touch. In my dream, he became more human than angel. Angels can’t feel physical sensation—I knew this—but in my dream, I wanted Patch to feel the soft, silky pressure of our lips connecting. I wanted him to feel my fingers pushing through his hair. I needed him to feel the thrilling and undeniable magnetic field pulling every molecule in his body toward mine.

  Just like I did.

  Patch ran his finger under the silver chain at my neck, his touch sending a shiver of pleasure rippling through me. “I love you,” he murmured.

  Bracing my fingertips on his hard stomach, I leaned in, stopping just short of a kiss. I love you more, I said, brushing his mouth as I spoke.

  Only, the words didn’t come out. They stayed caught in my throat.

  While Patch waited for me to respond, his smile faltered.

  I love you, I tried again. Once again, the words stayed clamped inside.

  Patch’s expression turned anxious. “I love you, Nora,” he repeated.

  I nodded frantically, but he’d turned away. He swung off the motorcycle and left without looking back.

  I love you! I yelled after him. I love you, I love you!

  But it was as if quicksand had been poured down my throat; the harder I tried to wrestle the words out, the faster they were towed under.

  Patch was slipping away in a crowd. Night had fallen down around us in a snap, and I could barely distinguish his black T-shirt from the hundreds of other dark shirts in the masses. I ran to catch up, but when I grabbed his arm, it was someone else who turned around. A girl. It was too dark to get a good read on her features, but I could tell she was beautiful.

  “I love Patch,” she told me, smiling through shocking red lipstick. “And I’m not afraid to say it.”

  “I did say it!” I argued. “Last night I told him!”

  I pushed past her, eyes scanning the crowd until I caught a glimpse of Patch’s trademark blue ball cap. I shoved my way frantically over to him and reached out to catch his hand.

  He turned back, but he’d changed into the same beautiful girl. “You’re too late,” she said. “I love Patch now.”

  “Over to Angie with weather,” Chuck Delaney yapped cheerfully in my ear.

  My eyes sprang open at the word “weather.” I lay in bed a moment, trying to shake off what was nothing more than a bad dream, and get my bearings. The weather was announced at twenty before the hour, and there was no possible way I was hearing the weather, unless . . .

  Summer school! I’d overslept!

  Kicking back the covers, I fled to the closet. Shoving my feet into the same jeans I’d discarded at the bottom of the closet last night, I stretched a white tee over my head and layered it with a lavender cardigan. I speed-dialed Patch but three rings later was sent to voice mail. “Call me!” I said, pausing a half second to wonder if he was avoiding me after last night’s big confession. I’d made up my mind to pretend it had never happened until it blew over and things returned to normal, but after this morning’s dream, I was beginning to doubt I’d let go of it that easily. Maybe Patch was having just as hard a time dropping it. Either way, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it right now. Even though I could have sworn he’d promised me a ride . . .

  I pushed a headband into my hair in lieu of a hairstyle, snatched my backpack off the kitchen counter, and rushed out the door.

  I paused in the driveway long enough to give a scream of exasperation at the eight-by-ten-foot slab of cement where my 1979 Fiat Spider used to sit. My mom had sold the Spider to pay off a three-months-delinquent electricity bill, and to stock our fridge with enough groceries to keep us fed through the end of the month. She’d even dismissed our housekeeper, Dorothea, a.k.a. my surrogate parent, to trim expenses. Sending a hateful thought in the direction of Circumstance, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and started jogging. Most people might consider the rural Maine farmhouse my mom and I live in quaint, but the truth is, there’s nothing quaint about the mile-long jog to the nearest neighbors. And unless quaint is synonymous with eighteenth-century drafty money pit situated in the eye of an atmospheric inversion that sucks in all the fog from here to the coast, I beg to differ.

  At the corner of Hawthorne and Beech, I saw signs of life as cars zipped along on their morning commute. I used one hand to stick my thumb in the air and the other to unwrap a piece of breath-freshening, toothpaste-replacing gum.

  A red Toyota 4Runner braked at the curb, and the passenger window lowered with an automated hum. Marcie Millar sat behind the wheel. “Car trouble?” she asked.

  Car trouble as in no car. Not that I was about to admit it to Marcie.

  “Need a ride?” she rephrased impatiently when I failed to answer.

  I couldn’t believe out of all the cars passing down this stretch of road, Marcie’s had to be the one to stop. Did I want to ride with Marcie? No. Was I still worked up over what she’d said about my dad? Yes. Was I about to forgive her? Absolutely not. I would have gestured for her to keep driving, but there was one small snag. Rumor had it that the only thing Mr. Loucks liked more than the periodic table of the elements was handing out detention slips to tardy students.

  “Thanks,” I accepted reluctantly. “I’m on my way to school.”

  “Guess your fat friend couldn’t give you a ride?”

  I froze with my hand on the door handle. Vee and I had long ago given up educating small-minded people that “fat” and “curvy” are not the same thing, but that didn’t mean we tolerated the ignorance. And I would have gladly called Vee for a ride, but she’d been invited to attend a training meeting for hopeful editors of the school’s eZine and was already at school.

  “On second thought, I’ll walk.” I gave Marcie’s door a shove, locking it back in position.

  Marcie tried on a confused face. “Are you offended I called her fat? Because it’s true. What is it with you? I feel like everything I say has to be censored. First your dad, now this. What happened to freedom of speech?”

  For a split moment I thought it would be nice and convenient if I still had the Spider. Not only would I not be stranded without a ride, but I might get the pleasure of plowing Marcie over. The school parking lot was chaotic after school. Accidents happened.

  Since I couldn’t bounce Marcie off my front fender, I did the next best thing. “If my dad owned the Toyota dealership, I think I’d be environmentally minded enough to ask for a hybrid.”

  “Well, your dad doesn’t own the Toyota dealership.”

  “That’s right. My dad’s dead.”

  She raised one shoulder. “You said it, not me.”

  “From now on, I think it’s better if we stay out of each other’s way.”

  She examined her manicure. “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  “Just trying to be nice, and look where it got me,” she said under her breath.

  “Nice? You called Vee fat.”

  “I also offered you a ride.” She floored the gas, her tires spitting up road dust that wafted in my direction.

  I hadn’t woken up this morning looking for another reason to hate Marcie Millar, but there you go.

  Coldwater High had been erected in the late nineteenth century, and the construction was an eclectic mix of Gothic and Vict
orian that looked more cathedral than academic. The windows were narrow and arched, the glass leaded. The stone was multicolored, but mostly gray. In the summer, ivy crawled up the exterior and gave the school a certain New England charm. In the winter, the ivy resembled long skeletal fingers choking the building.

  I was half speed-walking, half jogging down the hall to chemistry when my cell phone rang in my pocket.

  “Mom?” I answered, not slowing my pace. “Can I call you ba—”

  “You’ll never guess who I ran into last night! Lynn Parnell. You remember the Parnells. Scott’s mom.”

  I peeked at the clock on my cell. I’d been fortunate enough to hitch a ride to school with a complete stranger—a woman on her way to kickboxing at the gym—but I was still cutting it short. Less than two minutes to the tardy bell. “Mom? School is about to start. Can I call you at lunch?”

  “You and Scott were such good friends.”

  She’d triggered a faint memory. “When we were five,” I said. “Didn’t he always wet his pants?”

  “I had drinks with Lynn last night. She just finalized her divorce, and she and Scott are moving back to Coldwater.”

  “That’s great. I’ll call you—”

  “I invited them over for dinner tonight.”

  As I passed the principal’s office, the minute hand on the clock above her door ticked to the next notch. From where I stood, it looked caught between 7:59 and eight sharp. I aimed a threatening look at it that said Don’t you dare ring early. “Tonight’s not good, Mom. Patch and I—”

  “Don’t be silly!” Mom cut across me. “Scott is one of your oldest friends in the world. You knew him long before Patch.”

  “Scott used to force me to eat roly-polies,” I said, my memory starting to come around.

  “And you never forced him to play Barbies?”

  “Totally different!”

  “Tonight, seven o’clock,” Mom said in a voice that shut out all argument.

  I hurried into chemistry with seconds to spare and slid onto a metal stool behind a black granite lab table on the front row. Seating was two to a table, and I had my fingers crossed that I’d get paired with someone whose understanding of science surpassed my own, which, given my standard, wasn’t hard to beat. I tended to be more of a romantic than a realist, and chose blind faith over cold logic. Which put science and me at odds right from the start.