The Singing River (17 page)

He laughed. “Afraid to talk about it?”

Deciding it was better to be bluntly honest than try and skirt the issue, I sat up just enough to look down at him. “No, I’m afraid if we do, I’ll want to do it again.”

River’s eyes darkened, his free hand coming up to grip the back of my head, his eyes searching my face. “You can’t say things like that,” he whispered.

He was pulling my head down toward his, and I let him.

“Why?” I whispered back.

It was a dangerous question with a dangerous answer.

His lips were an inch away from mine when he replied, “Because I
know
I want to do it again.”

The kiss, when it came, was soft and gentle, undemanding. It was easy to get lost in, easy to forget everything but the moment.

A clearing throat broke us apart.

“You two watching the peanuts?” Mr. Nelson called out.

River’s eyes met mine.

I chuckled. “Almost done I think.”

Pushing myself off the hammock, I stepped toward the pot, mixing the peanuts with a long handled spoon before turning to Mr. Nelson, who’d long since given up his pretense of sleep.

“These should be ready to bag.”

The next couple of hours were spent in silence as we drained the peanuts, letting them cool before moving them to freezer bags. River stood behind me in Mr. Nelson’s kitchen, his open shirt and damp skin touching mine as he leaned against me at the sink. It wasn’t a productive stance, but the feel of him against my bare back overwhelmed my senses, and there was no way I was going to tell him to move.

My eyes watched Mr. Nelson through the kitchen window as he filled the second pot outside with peanuts, his lips pursed as he whistled. The sun was setting behind him, throwing rays that turned everything it touched into gold.

River’s arms enfolded me, his hands on mine in the sink, the cold water running over our fingers as we ran them over the cooling peanuts. What neither of us said in words, we said with our bodies, his chest pressed up against my back, his water-sodden fingers tracing circles on my palms. Electricity shot through my hands and down into my feet.

“I haven’t decided yet if you are just what I need or trouble.”

River whispered it, his lips next to my ear. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I shivered.

“I suppose it depends on what you’re looking for,” I answered him. “People are what you perceive them.”

He chuckled. “Perception can often be distorted.”

I tilted my head back, my gaze going to River’s face. “Are you looking for trouble?”

He stared down at me. One of his wet hands lifted, his cold, moist finger tracing my lips before running across my cheek. Moisture ran down my face. It felt like tears. Chilly tears.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking for,” he replied.

We stood frozen, our eyes locked. I wasn’t sure what I read in his gaze. Confusion maybe?

“My favorite color is cerulean.” I blurted it out, and then blushed because I didn’t know where it came from. It just felt important somehow. “Not blue,” I continued, “but cerulean. Because it’s what the sky looks like just before nightfall. Because it’s what I imagine the ocean looks like when you’re sitting on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere.”

I expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. Instead, his eyes changed, darkened. They went from milk chocolate to dark in mere seconds.

“Black,” he said. “Mine is black. Because it’s what I see when I close my eyes, the moment of peace and darkness right before I rest, the color of the clouds right before a massive storm. Because it’s that perfect night when there is no moon.”

It seemed an odd choice of color to me, but no odder than our current conversation, no odder than this moment.

“Because you like storms?” I asked.

He smiled. “Because I like the way the air feels before a storm, as if it’s holding its breath, waiting for the perfect moment to exhale.”

I watched him, my gaze searching his, and I rambled on, my brain telling me to shut up even as I said, “I don’t like gum. I don’t like the way it feels or the way people smack when chewing it. It’s like fingers on a chalkboard.”

River’s lips turned up. “So only peppermints before you kiss? I’ll remember that.”

This was the moment where I was supposed to laugh, maybe turn and thump him in the chest for being a smart ass, but I rambled on instead.

“I’m sort of obsessed with reading my horoscope, and I hate wearing shoes. I count calories in my head when I eat, and I like to write. Nothing important, just ideas,” I murmured.

River’s cool fingers fanned out along my face, dry now against my skin.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Because you said you didn’t know what you were looking for and because you needed to know what you’d find in me. I’m not chocolate boxes and a dozen roses. I’m not that girl. I wouldn’t eat the chocolates and my mother would kill the roses. I’m friendship bracelets made out of twine. I’m the type of girl that thinks it’s fun to boil peanuts with a seventy-eight-year-old friend. I’m library books and journals, and I’m hard work. I wouldn’t know how to be anything else.”

He stared too long then, his palm having warmed against my skin before he said, “And that’s why I’m drawn to you.”

His words caught me off guard, and my brows rose. “Why?”

His head came down. “Because you wouldn’t know how to be anything else, and I’m constantly pretending to be something I’m not. Because when I’m standing next to you, it’s easy to be who I am.”

The smile I gave him was soft and sad. “Then you’re not looking for trouble.”

His lips turned up. “No, I’m looking for escape.”

How easy it was for him to say escape. If only he knew the burdens my life came with, the pain, and the worry.

He’d kissed me again then, turning me so that his bare stomach touched my skin, his lips moist and warm against mine, and I’d let myself get lost in it. I’d let myself pretend that escape was an okay thing, but there was still that niggling doubt in my head, that little part of me that asked,
“What happens when he can’t escape anymore?”

Chapter 26

River

For a year I’d dreamt constantly of my father; dreamt about his body sprawled in his study, the deep, hateful gashes on his skin. For a year, I hadn’t slept much past midnight, the dreams keeping me more awake than asleep. My body would be cold with fear and then hate, with the knowledge that the man or men who’d murdered my father were still free.

But that was this past year. For the last two nights since returning from Mr. Nelson’s home at two in the morning to find an irritated Marissa and pacing Roman, I’d dreamt about a sandy-haired young woman who liked horoscopes and hated chewing gum. For two days, as Marissa spoke endlessly of Cecily Davies and why I should take her to dinner while I was home, I’d thought about cerulean oceans and twine friendship bracelets. For two days, as Roman found ways to sneak out of the house while fighting with me about his car, I’d thought of bare feet and wilting roses.

For two days, I thought about that night; citronella candles burning as Haven Ambrose ran barefoot across moist grass to stir peanuts, her braid a frizzy mess, her cheeks flushed by the heat. For two nights, I thought about Mr. Nelson’s peeling porch, the unusual smell of boiling peanuts mixed with insect repellant, and the apple scent in Haven’s hair that drove me wild. I dreamt of her skin against mine, and the way her eyes always widened right before I kissed her. It was the first time I’d had relief from the nightmares, and it gave me strength. Not physical, but emotional strength.

It was two nights of reprieve from horror that found me standing at five a.m. at my father’s closed study door, my hand resting against the wood. Outside, the sun was just noticeable through the trees, the faint light casting shadows in a hall full of tragedy. It was Roman who’d awoken me, the sound of his footsteps past my bedroom door at dawn soft, but not light enough not to alert me. I hadn’t tried to stop him. He wasn’t going to stop until he’d found his truth, the answers he thought would make the nightmares go away.

My fingers moved over the wood, sliding down to the doorknob. It was easier than I thought it would be to open that door, to walk into a room that had haunted me for months now. For a moment, I thought I saw him there, his prone shape lying in a pool of blood in the dark room. My hand hovered over the light switch, my mind suspended in limbo between two worlds, two moments in time, then and now.

“Dad.”

The word was loud in the still room as I pushed the switch up, flooding the study with light, the glow softened by tinted bulb covers. Nothing in the office had changed. The desk still stood in the same place, an eclectic mix of art splashing only minimal color into the dark wood and latte walls. An overstuffed, brown leather chair sat behind the desk, pushed back slightly as if someone had been sitting in it and was on the verge of standing.

Stepping onto a thick chocolate-colored area rug, I paused, my eyes on the floor. The area rug was the only thing that had changed, the old, lighter rug having been removed because of the blood in the fibers, used first for evidence before being destroyed.

I stooped, my gaze on one particular spot in the rug, one hand braced on the floor. “You left me in a bad place, Dad.” The silence that answered me was deafening. “I’m not what you need me to be, and I’m not sure I want to be.” I shook my head. “And look at Roman. He’s a mess. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Try,” a voice answered me.

I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.

“And if I don’t want to?” I asked.

Marissa took a tentative step forward, her heels clicking on the hardwood.

“Your dad had a lot of expectations. I’m sure he doesn’t mean for you to meet all of them, but it’s best to try.”

“I don’t like business,” I blurted out.

Marissa didn’t say anything for a long moment. Dad’s presence was heavy between us.

“Then what do you like?” she asked.

I found courage in a pair of green eyes, in the image of a young woman living in a crumbling trailer, a woman with little hope who probably didn’t realize it was easier to fight for something in life than it was to live up to something you never wanted.

“The rain. I like the rain.”

My answer brought even more silence.

There was an exhale as Marissa said, “There’s no future in rain. Not the kind of future your father wanted for this family.”

My step-mother’s intentions were good. She’d been raised on expectations. It wasn’t that she didn’t want me to be happy, she just knew what it meant to be a Brayden, to have to support more than just you.

My eyes closed, a headache forming between my brows.

“I don’t want to marry Cecily Davies,” I said.

Marissa laughed. “You’re only twenty, River. I’m not asking you to marry anyone, just date her a little. Her family is good for our reputation. You have years ahead of you. College to finish. Marriage isn’t in the cards right now, but Cecily isn’t a bad girl, and there are a lot more I know—”

“I don’t want to marry anyone like her,” I interrupted.

Marissa took another step forward. “River Brayden—”

“Don’t,” I insisted.

Marissa wasn’t listening. “Don’t tell me there’s something going on with this waitress Roman was talking about. The one from the river?”

My silence was answer enough.

“God, River,” Marissa breathed. “It’s not that I have a problem with—”

I stood, turning so that I faced her, my eyes cold. “I said don’t.”

Marissa’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes wide and searching.

“Did you know that Roman left this morning?” I asked, changing the subject.

Marissa stared at me, her face flushed. “I suspected it,” she answered.

It was all we said because, truthfully, there is only so much a person can do for someone who doesn’t want help. I grieved the loss of my father, but I also grieved for my brother. The weight on my shoulders grew heavier.

With no words left to say, I brushed past Marissa, stopping only when her hand went to my shoulder.

“The waitress,” she whispered.

“An escape,” I said.

She was an escape because that’s all she could be.