Chapter Twenty-One

Luke

“Luke.”

“Shit! Jaclyn!” I bounced backward on the sidewalk. “Where the hell did you come from?”

She wedged herself between me and the door of Common Grounds. I took another step back. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Did you follow me?”

“You told my mom about Drew?”

“Drew? Who the hell is Drew?” Realization dawned. “Ah. One of the guys you cheated on me with. Found out there were so many, I can’t keep track of them all.” An exaggeration, but still well deserved.

“So you did.”

“Actually I didn’t. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She grated out, “My mother knows.”

“Jaclyn,” I said, struggling for calm, “you can’t sleep with half the town and expect that word won’t get around.”

She drew back to slap me but my reflexes were superior to hers. I held both of her wrists in place. Maybe accusing her of sleeping with half the town was a bit much but I wasn’t going to apologize. When she took a step back, I released her.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I asked. “We’re not a couple. We’re never going to be a couple. We will never even be friends. Why can’t you just back off?”

“I was backing off,” she said coldly. “Until you stirred things up.”

“How did I stir things up?” I was at a loss.

“Are you listening to anything I say?”

“Is this about Drew?” I guessed.

“Yes, you idiot.”

“If she knows, she didn’t hear it from me. I don’t exactly go out of my way to talk to your mom. If you haven’t noticed, I work pretty hard at avoiding your whole damn family.”

“Really? Because she knew about Dad’s office.”

My stomach dropped. That had to have come from my mom. Okay, no wonder Jaclyn was so pissed. I’m sure her extracurricular use of Prescott office space didn’t sit too well with her mom or mine. At the same time, I felt a weird sense of relief that Mom had actually believed me.

“You know what my mother is like.” She glared at me with more hatred than I’d felt from her before. Considering how the last few months had gone, that was saying a lot.

“Don’t blame me for your mistakes.”

“I’m blaming you for not keeping your mouth shut.”

“Me?” I scoffed. “You started it by turning it around on me. You told your mom, knowing she’d tell mine, that I’m the one who cheated. Do you know how insulting that is? I had to set the record straight. I had that right.”

She opened her mouth, ready to go another round. This could go on indefinitely, I knew from past experience.

I sidestepped her and reached for the door. “Forget it. I’m not doing this with you. If your mom is pissed, then maybe that’s exactly what you deserve. You need to stop acting like a spoiled, entitled princess. Take responsibility for your own actions for a change. This is not my fault, so let it go.”

She slammed her hand against the frame, keeping it closed.

“Let it go?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Thanks to you, my mom practically has me on lockdown.”

“She can’t have you locked down too tightly. I mean…” I motioned to her, standing right there in front of me. Blocking my way again.

“I just came from church! She thinks she can stop me from seeing Trevor. I have an asinine curfew. I’m required to be home for dinner every night. Did I mention the lectures? The neverending lectures? I’ll let it go when you’re as miserable as I am.” She gave my shoulder a pat. “That’s a promise.”

Her words settled like a stone in the pit of my stomach. The feud between us had been going on for months now. My gut instinct was telling me there was no way it was going to end well.

It was hard to remember a time when we’d actually gotten along. When things started going downhill, they really took a nosedive.

I pulled the door open. I kept walking. I’d never let her know how much she rattled me.

I spotted Meg tucked away in a back booth. Her head was down as she doodled on a napkin. Her hair fell forward, like a curtain, blocking out the commotion of the morning crowd.

I stopped a few feet away.

Watching Meg instantly calmed the chaos crashing around in my head. I stood there for a minute, just taking her in. I didn’t see her as the same girl who had sashayed into Maebelle’s. She had been all hard edges and feistiness. The Meg I’d gotten to know was funny, vulnerable, and a perfect mix of sweet-sass.

As I stood there, I realized something.

The little criminal had a hold of my heart.

Suddenly I was itching to get out of there. I wanted to take her somewhere so I could have her all to myself. For weeks we’d been living in a gray area. My threat of blackmail had slipped into a no-strings relationship. It was probably time we hashed this out and determined what was really going on between us.

Falling for her was not part of the original plan. But as she turned to me and smiled, I realized it had been a stupid plan anyway. Maybe it was time we reassessed this no strings thing.

“Hey, you.”

“Sorry I’m late. I got caught up.”

I was already late before my run in with Jaclyn. So late that Meg had a half dozen napkin doodles going on.

I dropped down across from her. “Maybe you should just get a tattoo. Then you can have it with you all the time.”

“Maybe someday I will.” She pushed the napkins aside. “Are you okay?”

If she hadn’t noticed the drama on the sidewalk, I wasn’t about to drag her into it. I glanced around. I didn’t see Jaclyn. She must not have followed me in.

“I’m fine.” I strummed my fingers on the table. “I think we should get something to go. The weather’s decent for a change and there’s somewhere I want to take you.”

She leaned forward, her eyes widening with interest. “Where?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

I hopped up and she scrambled after me.

“That’s not fair. Give me a hint.”

“No,” I laughed. “There’s no point in giving you a hint. Now what do you want? Let’s get in line.”

…

“Well,” Meg said as she glanced around, “this is kind of remote.”

We stood in a weed-infested parking lot. The pavement was cracked, missing chunks in places. We were on the backside of a brick building with boarded windows. It stood in the center of what was now an overgrown field.

Cars periodically whizzed by on the road out front. I chose this place because I could park in back and no one could see us.

“It’s an old factory. It went bankrupt in the nineties. Now it’s just sitting here because it’s full of asbestos. Clean up would cost more than what the land is worth.”

Her arms were crossed over her chest. Her eyebrows were scrunched as she nodded. “Fascinating. That does not explain why we’re here.”

“I thought maybe you’d want to mess around.” I started toward my SUV.

“I don’t know, Luke.” She skipped along beside me, tapping the bill of my ball cap, making it sit cockeyed. “This place doesn’t exactly scream romance. It kind of screams bodies buried in the basement.”

I gave her a look. “That’s not what I meant. I meant mess around with these.” I reached into the open window of my backseat and pulled out a box.

She gave me a quizzical look before taking it. “Sidewalk chalk?”

“I know you said you were done with the graffiti. I also know you miss it. I get that this isn’t really the same. No one will see it back here, but I also saw your face the night you sprayed the tower.” She enjoyed the process. I had no doubt about that. “You were totally lost in your work. I could tell you were thinking of your sister, and it made you happy.”

I don’t think she realized it, but she doodled on everything. Napkins, scraps of paper, the sand, black marker over her black boots. The notebook with our rules was full of her quick sketches. I’d been driving around with the chalk for awhile, waiting for some free time and some decent weather. When I spotted the stack of napkins, I thought why not offer her a building? I was familiar with this one. Dad had been part of a few of the asbestos related lawsuits the company faced.

“Is it lame? It is.” I winced.

She set the chalk on the hood and pulled me in for a kiss. Her fingers dipped into my back pockets. She tugged me closer. I returned the favor, wrapping my arms around her, pressing her body into mine as the kiss deepened.

Oh, yeah. My heart had definitely been hijacked.

“I love this.” She eyed up the building when she moved away. “It’s like a magical canvas. When it rains, the chalk will wash away. Poof. Gone. I can start all over again.”

I gave her a nudge. “Hop to it.”

“Oh, no. I’m not doing this alone.” She grabbed my hand and towed me along.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “I was kinda looking forward to sitting back so I could watch you in action again.”

“I’ll take this side,” she moved to the left. “You take that side.”

A door split the two sides down the middle.

She set the chalk in front of the door, selecting the red chunk before moving to her side of the building.

“Nutmeg,” I grumped. “What am I supposed to draw? I’m not artistic.”

She was not sympathetic. “Pick up the chalk and draw from your heart.”

“Sure thing.” I grabbed a piece of chalk and stood back. I watched as she got busy.

She caught me admiring. With a stern look she pointed at my blank wall. “Get to work, mister.”

I moved forward, feeling like a kid, and began to scribble.

Eventually Meg sidled up next to me. She patted the top of my head. “I knew you could do it.”

“Ha,” I said. “Ha ha.”

Her eyes sparkled. I loved to see her happy. She picked up the box of chalk, and we moved back to my Navigator. From this vantage point we could see both drawings.

Hers was detailed, the contouring of the angel wings making them look multi-dimensional.

Mine? It looked like a toddler drew it. But I have to say, I got the appeal. Sketching something out like that? It was relaxing. Now I understood why half the teachers at school had those adult coloring books.

“It looks good,” I told her.

“So does yours. The baseball bat? Very realistic. And the ball is in perfect proportion.” Her tone was mock-serious as she continued to critique. “I’d give it at least a six. Maybe a six plus. You should’ve thrown in a glove, might’ve jacked you up to a perfect ten.”

Her phone chimed in her back pocket saving me from trying to defend myself.

She dug it out. “It’s Francesca.”

“Aren’t you going to answer?”

“I’ll call her later.”

“Good. Because there’s something I think we should talk about.”

She propped a hip against my driver’s door and waited.

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “So. I was thinking maybe we could…maybe we should…”

I faltered. I hadn’t really thought through what I was going to say. Meg had said she didn’t want anything serious. She did have a lot going on in her life. That hadn’t changed. In some ways, it seemed to be getting worse. Her parents were constantly on her mind. I didn’t want to push her. I readjusted my cap and kicked a piece of chipped asphalt. It skittered across the lot.

“This conversation is extraordinarily exciting,” she teased.

Her phone rang again. She frowned. “She usually texts. Maybe it’s important.”

She wandered away to take the call. When she twisted around and headed my way again, I knew instantly something was wrong. Her face was white. Her expression anxious. She disconnected and let the phone dangle from her hand.

“Nutmeg?”

“Francesca just saw a copy of this morning’s paper. The water tower is on the front page. They’re offering a reward in addition to the one offered through the school.”

Front page of the Sunday paper?

Yeah. We were screwed.