I COULDN’T FALL asleep after Lisa’s last words. Did she really think Tony liked me? If the rumors were to be believed, she was the one who knew him best, so if she said so, chances were she was right. But the other and far more important question was: Did I want him to like me?
I didn’t answer that immediately, which made me a little nervous. What if the answer was yes? That would mean I was falling for Tony. Seriously—with no going back. It would complicate everything.
I refused to think about this for the entire night. At some point, I started to sing a silly song in my mind to silence my thoughts. Awkwardly enough, it was the dwarfs’ “Heigh-Ho” I came up with. Brilliant, Sam. Just bloody brilliant. But it finally did the job, and I drifted off.
*
Morning with the girls was one of leisure, with a breakfast that dragged on until lunch. At least there was no more talk about Anthony Mitchell. This time we had a blast cornering Allie because of her cuddling up to Sasha during the movie last night. Susan suggested we download a questionnaire from YourDatingServices.com to give to Sasha at school on Monday to see if he was a suitable match for Allie.
When I got my things together and Susan drove me home, it was already early afternoon. Jack greeted me in the hallway as I walked through the door. He seemed in a hurry, trying to slip into his shoes, put on his jacket, and fetch money from his wallet all at the same time.
He handed me two hundred-dollar bills that looked like they were fresh off the press. “Can you give this to your aunt when she gets home?” he asked me, shoving his wallet back into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I was called to an emergency meeting and won’t be home until later tonight. The money is for Jab Jenkins.”
“The gardener?”
“Yes. For extra hours. He’ll come pick it up today. Pamela should be home by then.”
He was almost out the door when I shouted after him, “Where’s Pam?”
“Out for lunch with Jessie Hunter.”
The door slammed shut behind him, and I was alone in a silent house. Well, almost. Chloe banged on the door to my room only a little later while I was practicing some dancing and demanded I turn down my music because she couldn’t sleep out her hangover with noise like this.
I still couldn’t get used to her raven-black hair, but I respected her wish. It was her home, not mine. Finding a more quiet distraction with drawing, I tried to finish that speed picture. But it frustrated me more than yesterday, and finally I decided to give it a rest and make myself a sandwich instead.
Pam was already home and in the living room when I went downstairs. And look at that, the princess had risen from her beauty sleep, too. Chloe was watching TV while Pamela tried to fit new curtains to the wide windows. I pulled the two hundred dollars out of my pocket and passed them to my aunt together with the message from Uncle Jack.
My aunt pulled a face. “Jabbadiah called five minutes ago. His wife is ill and he won’t make it today.” She walked into the hall to find her purse and put the money away. “I’ll give it to him later this week.”
I shrugged, not really caring, and went to the fridge, loading food into my arms and carrying it to the counter. After I had eaten my turkey sandwich in the kitchen, I headed back to my room but halted in front of the stairs that led down to my uncle’s gym. Though I had never done a workout down there, in the past Chloe and I had often played in the spacious room, pretending the fitness equipment was a pirate ship or a princess carriage. The walls were soundproof. And that gave me an idea.
“Pam?” I shouted over my shoulder, waiting until she stuck her head into the hall. “Do you think Jack would mind if I practiced dancing in the gym?”
“Of course not, dear. Go ahead.” She smiled and disappeared into the living room once again.
I ran upstairs, changed into black cotton shorts, a top with spaghetti straps, and tennis shoes, grabbed my iPod, and rushed back down to the gym. On the way, I nicked a water bottle from the kitchen.
The gym was located just half a story beneath the ground floor, and since the land was on a slight gradient, they’d built a wall of windows overlooking the garden. Warm light flooded the room. I connected my music to the sound system lined up at one wall and moved some of the lighter equipment out of the way. With my hands placed on my hips, I glanced around the room.
Perfect. My very own dance studio.
I did some easy warm-up ballet, then skipped forward to a playlist of mostly Latin American songs with a strong, jumpy beat we’d used in my former Zumba class. Ely-T was my favorite singer from that list, and I chose a mix of aerobic and salsa dance elements. Sweat was beading everywhere on my body after only ten minutes. I loved it. This was one amazing way to lose myself. Music, if it was the right rhythm, moved me without my thinking about it. For a little while, it was only me and the beat.
I danced facing the window-wall and enjoyed the afternoon sun wrapping me up in light and warmth. My pulse was already raving from the workout. Crossing my legs, I spun on the spot.
And jumped back with a shriek, my hands clasped to my chest. “What the hell—”
Tony was leaning on the doorjamb, arms folded leisurely over his chest, his eyes dark with interest. For a crazy, long moment, I didn’t move and music was all I heard.
How long had he been watching me? The uncomfortable warmth of embarrassment surged through my body. But given that my face was thoroughly wet and red from dancing, Tony probably didn’t even catch my blush.
Eventually able to break eye contact, I walked over to the sound system and cut off the music. With a towel from the stack on the shelf, I wiped my face and cleavage, reining in my ragged breathing. “Who let you in?” I finally managed.
Tony didn’t move away from the doorjamb, only his gaze followed me. “Chloe’s mom.”
“And that was how long ago?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. “You should turn around more often when you dance.”
Yeah, right. Jerk.
I drank from my water bottle, wandering to the other side of the room where I sat on one of Jack’s weight benches, never taking my gaze off Tony. “So…?”
He adjusted the collar of his short-sleeved white shirt then shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “So what?”
“So, is there a deeper meaning to your visit?”
At my harsh tone, his smirk disappeared and a frown pulled his eyebrows together. “Yeah well, I actually didn’t come here to just watch TV with you.”
“Oh, really?” What a shame. I might have enjoyed cuddling against his shoulder again. If I wasn’t still in shock over seeing him in this house, of course. “Then what was your plan?”
Casually, Tony crossed the room and hooked one arm around Jack’s propped up barbell. “Can you shower and then come with me for a while?”
“Why? Do I have another appointment with the vet?”
A smile played around the corners of his lips. “No. I want to show you something.”
“Something?” I lifted one brow.
“Something cool. You’ll like it.”
“How would you know what I like?”
“Ah, I think I have an idea. Would you trust me now and get ready to go, please?”
“Cryptic and pushy.” I took another swig of my drink. “Tell you what, I’ll come if you tell me where we’re going.”
“Nah, I’m not saying. It’s a surprise.”
I didn’t like how he grinned and stressed the last word, but he’d gotten me curious as hell. And frankly, the longer I stared at his bulging biceps where he’d slung his arm around the barbell, the more I wanted to go. Only, he didn’t need to know that. “I don’t like surprises,” I told him flatly.
Tony’s arm slipped away from the barbell and he came to stand in front of me. “Every girl loves surprises.”
“I’m not every girl.”
“True, you’re not.” He said it so softly as he squatted down before me that the small hairs on my arms prickled. “We had a shitty start. I hurt you. Now I’m trying to make it up to you. Would you let me?”
“Um, I don’t know.” There was a cynical undertone in my voice, and the truth was, I really didn’t know. Being with him yesterday morning had been like being with any of my other new friends. But looking at Tony now caused my heart to squeeze in a few extra beats. Things had changed so much over the past couple days that I didn’t know what I wanted any longer.
As if he could read my mind, he cocked his head and lifted his brows. “What are you scared of?”
“Nothing,” I answered. Way too fast.
“Then come with me. And if it helps…” He straightened, holding one palm up and pressing the other to his chest as if he were in court. “I solemnly swear that I don’t have any shit in mind.”
I strangled a laugh by biting the inside of my cheek and heaved an overly exasperated sigh instead. “All right.” Rising from the bench, I pointed a finger at his face. “But this better be worth it.”
Without warning, Tony grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the door. “You can tell me later if it was. Now come. We’re running late.”
“Late for what?”
“You’ll see.” Then he added, “Bring your drawing stuff.”
What? Why? Gah! This boy had to be the bastard son of frustration. I pulled my hand free to close the door as we left the gym, then we ascended the few steps together.
On the first floor, Chloe was just coming out of the living room. She stopped dead, her face suddenly ashen. I didn’t know if it was appropriate to say something or just ignore her and walk upstairs to my room.
It was Tony who cut the silence, even if only with a murmur in my direction. “I’ll wait outside.”
“See you in a minute,” I replied, remaining rooted to the top of the stairs.
Tony brushed past Chloe. I couldn’t see his face, but the way Chloe’s eyes moved to his, I guessed the two of them had locked gazes for the length of a breath. Then I heard him say in a cold voice, “Interesting change, Summers.” He must have meant her hair.
When Tony was gone and I was alone with my cousin in the hallway, I got the full blast of her lethal scowl. “Are you crazy? Bringing Mit—”
“Excuse me, Chloe,” I cut her off, “but I don’t have time for this shit.” I knew where this would go, and right then I preferred to get under the shower and ready to see Tony again instead of taking ridiculous jealousy crap from her. With one hand on the rail, I continued upstairs, taking them two at a time, and left her standing in the hallway.
In record time, I showered and slipped into the rusty red and brown camouflage pants that I had worn on my first night out in Grover Beach. It was warm enough, so I threw on a black T-shirt with a typed winking smiley face on the front.
Leaving the laces of my boots untied as usual, I quickly packed my sketchpad and some pencils into my backpack, then I sneaked out of my room, checking both sides of the hallway to make sure I wouldn’t bump into Chloe again. She was nowhere in sight. Downstairs, however, Pamela caught me tiptoeing past the living room.
“That was Anthony Mitchell, right?” she said in a low voice.
I nodded.
“Things have changed between him and you then?”
I nodded again.
“That’s great. I’m really happy for you, Sam.”
“Chloe isn’t. She’ll hate me forever.”
Pamela sighed, pursing her lips. “I’ll talk to her about it.”
“No, please don’t,” I begged my aunt quickly and took her hands. “She already thinks I’m trying to steal you from her. Let this be between her and me. We’ll get this sorted out…somehow.”
Pam looked at me as though she hadn’t had any idea of what was going on between Chloe and me, but I knew she had noticed it from the start. “Okay.”
“Thanks, Pam.” Releasing her hands, I walked to the door.
Pamela walked with me. “Where are you two going?”
“I have no idea. He won’t tell.”
“Don’t be home too late. It’s a school night.”
“I won’t be.” Hopefully. The truth was I had no idea when Tony intended to bring me back. With a wave over my shoulder, I walked outside and closed the door. There was no red car in the drive this time, but Tony sat on a metallic-green mountain bike, leaning his forearms on the handlebar.
“Do you have a bike?” he asked me. When I shook my head, he grimaced. “I guessed that. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take my mom’s car today, so you’ll have to hop on here.” He straightened and tapped at the handlebar.
My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding me.”
“It’s a bit of a way. Too far to walk. So buck up, Summers, and get your butt up here.” Tony smirked, reached over, and grabbed my hand, leaving me no choice as he dragged me forward. First he pulled my backpack from my shoulders to carry it himself. Otherwise it would only be in his way, he told me. Steadying the bike then, he let me climb onto the handlebar, which wasn’t as easy as they always made it look in movies. When I was sitting with my feet dangling but my hands anchored with an iron grip around the cold metal, he started to pedal, and we slowly moved down the street.
This was scary as hell, because soon we gained speed. A shaky whine escaped me.
“Relax. I’ve done this a hundred times.” Tony’s nose brushed my hair—or maybe it was my hair wafting into his face from the ride—as he said the soft words into my ear.
“You might have, but I haven’t,” I croaked. My palms started to sweat, giving me the feeling of losing my hold. “How far do we have to go?”
“Just out of town. About three miles.”
Tony had to stand for the entire ten-minute ride, because I would have blocked his view if he sat. As the road turned slightly uphill and he had to step even harder into the pedals, he placed his forehead on my left shoulder, and I could not only hear his strained breathing but also feel it through the fabric of my shirt.
The lines of houses finally faded away at our sides, replaced by juicy green lowlands. A wonderfully fresh smell wafted around us, but I wondered what he wanted out here where there was nothing but grass, trees, and an occasional house every few hundred meters.
A white split-rail fence to our right hedged a wide area with a handful of horses in it. The dark animals were beautiful. I watched them grazing in the warm afternoon sun and didn’t notice that Tony had slowed down until we suddenly stopped at one corner of the fence. A trail led away from the road, following the pasture up to a nice little property.
“Get off. We have to walk from here,” Tony told me. “The path is too bumpy for you on the handlebar.”
I jumped off his bike and faced him with a questioning look. “Do you know the people who live here?”
“Yep.”
“And we’re going to visit them?”
“Not them. But the horses.” Tony leaned his bike against the white fence and started walking toward the house. “You said you needed a live model. So… Ta-da.” He sort of sang the last word as he spread his arms like he was presenting me with this paddock and the horses in it.
“I never thought I’d actually ever say this, but you’re amazing, Anthony Mitchell.” The urge to hug him rose within me, but I resisted and skipped ahead of him, whistling with two fingers to get the nearest horse’s attention.
It was a gorgeous black stallion with one white hind leg and a blaze in the shape of a sword on its forehead. Tearing out a handful of grass near the fence and holding it out, I lured the animal closer. The stallion caught the grass between his lips then gave my shoulder a nudge that pushed me a couple of steps backward. He hadn’t looked so tall from a distance.
“Who lives here?” I demanded, following Tony up the path and leaving the horse behind. “A friend of yours?”
“Not a friend. Family. And you know her.”
“Her?” I frowned. How would I know any of his relatives? But then it dawned on me. “Mrs. Jackson?”
“Yep. This is my aunt’s land.” His voice was a little strained. He climbed over an iron gate close to a nice white house with a dark gray roof and broad windows facing the paddock. “She’s been breeding horses for as long as I can remember.”
Unlike Tony, I didn’t climb over, but ducked through the two metal bars parallel to the ground. “You sure she doesn’t mind me coming here with you?”
Tony waited until I straightened again. “I called her this morning. She’s happy to help you with your AVE project and thought it was a wonderful idea. Hopefully, it’ll also help me get an A in her class this year.”
That surprised me. “Your drawings are brilliant!” I bit my tongue and quickly corrected myself, trying to sound less enthusiastic. “Well, they’re very nice, actually. She has no choice but to give you an A.”
“Being my teacher and my aunt? You have no idea how hard she goes on me. It’s totally unfair. Like I have to do everything three times as good as others just to get the same grades.”
“She probably knows you have it in you and wants to coax it out that way. I think that’s smart of her.”
Tony cut me a stern glance as we approached the white house. “You wouldn’t say that if she was your aunt.” Then he rang the doorbell and we waited in front of the dark brown door to be welcomed.
Mrs. Jackson opened the door only half a minute later, her smile widening when she saw us. Just like he had done with Jessie Hunter, Tony kissed his aunt on the cheek as he greeted her. It was lovely to watch him when he cared to show his good manners.
Mrs. Jackson then shook my hand. “Samantha. It’s so nice to have you out here. Tony told me about your struggles with drawing a horse. I’m sure you’ll find it easy with one of them in the paddock as a model.”
I thanked her for the invitation and the opportunity, then I happily followed Tony across the yard to a romantic place behind the house.
An overburdened apple tree grew in the middle of a meadow next to the horses’ pasture. Several fruits lay on the ground, but most of them still hung on the branches. I settled down in its shade with my back against the tree, breathing in the intense smell of leaves and fruit. Tony handed me my backpack with my drawing utensils. The sketchpad placed against my thighs and the pencil clasped tightly, I couldn’t wait to get started. There was only one problem. “The horses are too far away.”
Tony, who had just lain down in the soft grass, blinked at me. He knew what I wanted from him. “All right.” With a groan, he jerked up again and strolled over to the fence. Using his fingers, he whistled so loudly that I flinched. Like I’d done before, he then ripped some grass from the ground and waved it at eye level of the nearest horse that had lifted its head at his signal. The brown animal stalked closer, ate the grass, then dipped its head and started grazing next to the fence.
Tony turned to me. “Happy?”
I gave him a sheepish look, shaking my head. “The black one?”
“Argh, Summers! Seriously?”
A smile curved my mouth.
“Fine.” Rolling his eyes, he trudged away. A little later, he came back along the inside of the paddock’s fence, leading the gorgeous stallion on a dark blue halter that the animal hadn’t been wearing before. Tony obviously knew his way around this property and around the horses, too.
“I’m impressed,” I admitted as he came and sat down beside me.
Tony raised his brows at my empty paper and taunted me, “You should be working.”
Happy now, I started outlining the body of the horse with a few simple sketches, continuously looking up at the model. When the skeletal structure was finished, I began adding layer after layer, shaping the horse into a moving animal. But soon I faced a different problem.
Tony must have noticed my concern when I started chewing on my pencil instead of using it on the paper. “What’s up?” he demanded.
“The horse isn’t moving. I can’t finish this if he stands still as a rock.” I turned a pleading look to Tony. “Do you think you could make him move somehow?”
He shrugged and rose to his feet. “I can try.” On the way over to the black stallion, he picked up an apple and then swayed it in front of the animal’s mouth. When the horse strained its neck to catch the fruit, Tony pulled his hand away and walked a few steps to the left. He climbed onto the split-rail fence and straddled the top. “Come here, horsey, horsey, horsey.”
The stallion cocked his ears but otherwise didn’t move.
“He isn’t a cat,” I told Tony, frowning at him in disbelief.
He grunted, hopped down, and walked back to the horse, teasing it with the fruit once more. “You want this yummy apple?” With a powerful thrust, he tossed it far out into the paddock. “Go get it!”
I giggled. “And he sure as hell isn’t a dog!”
“Really, Miss Summers? Then tell me, what’s your plan to improve this situation?” His voice was saccharin sweet.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Walk it?”
Tony heaved a sigh, deliberating. “You’re insane, Summers.” Nevertheless, he grabbed the blue halter and marched off with the stallion in tow. Boy and horse walked back and forth a few times while I made changes to my drawing.
“Faster!” I shouted.
Tony started to jog, the stallion trotting beside him.
I let them run for a few minutes, then tried again, “Think you can go a little faster?”
“No, I don’t think I can, Sam,” Tony gasped, letting go of the horse and bending over, hands braced on his knees. His hair a sweaty mess, he turned his face to me. His blue eyes shone in the bright light, his cheeks had turned red, and he bit his bottom lip. He looked gorgeous, just like that day when I’d gone to his house to get his notes.
The corners of his mouth went up slightly which made me return a shy smile of my own.
And there I realized with shocking clarity that the girls had been right. I really was falling for this guy.