Steadfast (True North #2) Read online

  Denny’s voice dropped. “I’m sorry.” He was easy to talk to, and I was glad to have a friend at work. I wasn’t attracted to him, though. Not even a little. I really shouldn’t have agreed to see him tonight.

  We rode in silence for a minute, and I stared out the window. I looked for Jude, of course. It wasn’t rational, but a broken heart never is. Maybe this would be the shove I needed to leave town. When the hospital gave Denny the full-time spot, there would be nothing left for me here except the knowledge that the only man I’d ever loved was walking around out there somewhere. I’d be on edge every day of my life.

  Inevitably, one of those eventual sightings of Jude would be him in a parked car, lip-locked to some other girl. That was going to sting.

  I didn’t want to live like this—full of confusion and guilt all the time, and heartbroken in a hundred ways at once. I didn’t mean to hold a torch for someone who had broken my family, gone to jail and then refused all my letters.

  But even a glimpse of him had given me palpitations. As if my subconscious had recognized a piece of my soul before my brain got a chance to speak up.

  Last night I’d lain awake just knowing that he was less than a mile away. He was probably in his old bed, where we used to steal away to make love. My freshman year of college, he’d drive to Burlington every Friday to fetch me for the weekend. We’d spend Saturday in his bed, exhausting ourselves. I ached remembering those times. The way he’d smile at me, hovering over me in bed. We were so hot and heavy he could just cast a gaze in my direction and I’d feel desire.

  Those were the good times. If I wanted to stay sane, I’d have to remember the bad times, too. The times when he showed up late. Or when he’d take me to a party and disappear, only to reappear with jumpy eyes.

  The night he didn’t show up at all.

  I’d let him get away with that behavior because I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that side of Jude. And I’d been so thrilled that someone as exciting as him could love me that I looked the other way. I hadn’t wanted my father to be right, either. My father hated my boyfriend because my father was good at hating.

  My convictions had been firm and unwavering.

  Then, one clear night in May, Jude offered my brother a ride somewhere. The newspaper reporter was unable to discover where. Apparently Jude was so high that night he couldn’t remember the crash. A tox screen found enough opiates in his bloodstream to stop an ox.

  Jude’s car hit a tree on the side of the two-lane road where they traveled. My brother flew from the car and snapped his neck. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, but we’re not supposed to dwell on that. Instead, my parents focused only on the fact that Jude had a drug problem. Everyone wanted to know how I could have been so stupid as to date a man who’d drive while intoxicated.

  Three years later and I was still trying to figure that out.

  “You look like you could use a burger and a beer,” Denny said. He’d pulled into a spot in the town lot, and now was watching me from the driver’s seat.

  “I really could. This has been a hell of a week.”

  His face got soft. “I’m sorry. Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  “No,” I said a little too forcefully. “You are a force of good in the world, Den. Seriously.”

  I’d never seen Denny’s face light up quite so brightly as it did then. He hopped out of the car and ran around to my side, and I let him open the door for me. “Hey, Denny?” I asked, climbing out.

  “Yeah?”

  He was standing right in front of me, which made it easier to say what I needed to say. “I want to thank you for herding me in the right direction yesterday.” When I said this, his face took on a strange, intense expression. (Later I would kick myself for misinterpreting this.) “When I needed your help yesterday, you—”

  My apology was cut off by an unexpected kiss. Unexpected and very wet. Wet the way a car wash is wet.

  Holy…!

  My instinct to flee kicked in just a wee bit too hard. Instead of gently pushing Denny back, I jerked away from him, slipping between his body and the side of the car. Only when I’d put some distance between us did my manners reemerge. “Sorry,” I gasped. “I…”

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, putting his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. I thought you were saying…” He took a deep breath. “I’m such an idiot.”

  What had he thought I meant?

  “You were thanking me for herding you to the meeting,” he said, his voice strained. “Not herding you to go out with me.”

  “Yes of course…” And wasn’t this embarrassing?

  “Wow,” he said, staring at his shoes. “I’ve screwed up dates before. But it usually takes me a couple of hours.”

  I was too embarrassed for him to agree. I’d been worried that I’d have to give him the brush-off after tonight, but I thought it would wait at least until the weekend. Now a long silence hung between us. I had no idea what to do.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket. He still hadn’t looked at me again.

  As much as I wished I could zap myself home to my bedroom with a book and a cup of tea, it would only make tomorrow more awkward. I saw Denny every day at work. I even saw him on Wednesday nights at church. “Bowling,” I said.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “Really. I get it. I’m sorry.”

  “Come on,” I said, ducking around him and heading down the sidewalk. “We’re going to skip the tavern, but that means we can have some of those greasy wings at the bowling alley.”

  “You like greasy wings?” he asked, with something like relief in his voice.

  “Sometimes they hit the spot.” I kept going, heading toward the bowling alley.

  A moment later, I heard him following me.

  Sophie and Jude are both 17

  Sophie and Jude never go to each other’s houses.

  She knows her father too well to bring Jude around. Her father is a bully, and he’ll try to intimidate Jude. And when that doesn’t work (because Jude didn’t seem intimidated by anyone) he’ll try to make Jude feel like a loser somehow. He’ll say something about tattoos being trashy or ask Jude where his mother is.

  And they never go to Jude’s house, either. Whenever Jude speaks of his father, he refers to him as “that mess.” Sophie is pretty sure he doesn’t want her to witness the mess in person. So she never presses him on the issue.

  “I got my father to promise me something,” Jude says one day out of the blue. “Next year after graduation, I can move into the room over the garage. It will take some work to fix it up, but I’ll like having my own place. You can come over, too.”

  Now there’s a thrilling idea. She gets shivers just thinking about being truly alone with him.

  For now, they spend a lot of time in his car, listening to music on the radio and talking. Tonight they’re parked outside the Colebury Diner, where she and Jude have planned to indulge in ice cream sundaes after a little time alone.

  It’s December and awfully cold, so they hug each other to get warm.

  Their making out has progressed from reaching over the gearbox to her sitting in his lap. Sophie’s lips glide up the side of his face. She takes a gentle taste of his temple before kissing his forehead, dropping kisses at his hairline.

  Her cleavage is almost at the level of his face. She wishes he would touch her already. Her breasts are so full and achy whenever they’re together.

  Sophie is tired of waiting. She’s wearing a V-neck T-shirt, too, damn it. Doesn’t he notice? She tips her head backward a little way, arching her back.

  A low, guttural sound escapes his lips. Jude leans forward, his lips finding the base of her throat. Desire floods her as his lips tease this new, sensitive place. He raises a hand, caressing her ribcage. She wishes he would just stick his hand up her shirt and touch her, damn it.

  What’s the use of having the sort of tattooed boyfriend who keeps fathers up at night if he won’t even get rid of he
r damned virginity for her?

  Jude groans then tugs her chin down for a proper kiss. His tongue slides against hers, his tongue piercing torturing her. She forgets her frustrations, because Jude is perfect. His eyes are open as they kiss, taking her in, not missing a thing. He makes her feel cherished. If she said that word out loud it would sound silly. But his touch is reverent…

  There’s a loud bang on the door of the car and Sophie jumps half a foot in surprise.

  Jude just tips his head back and grits his teeth. “If your asshole brother dented my car, I’m going to fucking punch him.”

  Sophie grabs the lever and opens the car door. She jumps out and faces her brother, who’s laughing with his idiot lacrosse friends. Usually Gavin is busy doing keg stands at his frat house, but the asshole is on a month-long Christmas vacation at the moment. “What is your fricking problem?” she demands. Is there no place on God’s green earth where she and Jude can be alone?

  “Thought you needed an interruption. Don’t do anything stupid with your trailer-park boyfriend.”

  Even without looking at him, she can feel tension rising off Jude. He’s too smart to start something with the police chief’s son and his loyal posse of heavies.

  Gavin leans in to take a look at the interior of the Porsche. “Have you thought about selling me this car yet?”

  Jude shakes his head slowly. “I told you already. Too many hours of my labor in this baby. I could never do it.”

  “Maybe if you’d quote a price, I won’t tell my father what it is you two do in this car.”

  “There is nothing to tell,” Jude says easily. “We’re on our way inside for ice cream.” He pats Sophie on the hip. “You can pick the flavor.”

  Sophie gives her brother a glare. Not that he notices.

  Jude nudges her gently out of the way so that he can stand up, too. He doesn’t look Gavin in the eye, but he makes a careful show out of locking the door and pocketing the key. Mine, his actions say as he closes the car door with a click.

  Mine, his hand says when he palms her lower back.

  They go inside and find a booth, but his face is stony now.

  Sophie finds his feet with hers under the table and finally gets a smile. But it’s only fifty or sixty watts.

  Chapter Four

  Jude

  Cravings Level: 7 and rising

  Ninety-six hours in Colebury. And every one of ’em hard.

  As I’d feared, business at my father’s garage was dead. Not a lot of people wanted to hire an auto body repairman who sways while he gives you your estimate.

  Yesterday I’d put my plan into action. It cost me seventy dollars to buy a shiny new A-frame sign for outside the shop. When I was done sliding the new lettering into rows, it read: SNOW IS COMING! SNOW TIRES SWITCHED $40.

  “Might work,” my father had mumbled from behind the little TV he kept in the garage.

  But I’d heard on the shop radio that snow was forecast for next week. This was totally going to work.

  I got my first customer one hour after I put out my sign. An old woman pulled up outside and gave her horn a quick tap. I ran out to see what she needed.

  “I do need to put my snow tires on,” she said, blinking watery eyes at me from her lowered window. “But I’m afraid I can’t lift them into my trunk. They’re stacked in my garage.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Main and Alder,” she said, naming an intersection on the opposite end of town.

  Beggars can’t be choosers. “I’ll follow you in my car.”

  She would prove to be the first of a steady stream of customers.

  Yesterday I changed the tires on four cars. Then this morning I’d put the sign outside first thing. By the time I closed up shop at five thirty, I’d had a dozen takers. I’d been so busy that my father came out to help me and to make sure that all the money went into his till.

  He probably planned to pay me the same twelve dollars an hour that he’d paid me when I was eighteen. That was some bullshit right there, but I wasn’t going to argue right away. For a couple weeks I’d keep my mouth shut while I built up the garage’s revenue. I needed to make myself indispensable for longer than a day before I began making demands.

  Besides, I was happy to let my father handle the cash. I didn’t want to walk around with a pocket full of twenties. A guy with a recent drug habit was better off using his debit card for everything. I kept barely ten bucks in my wallet these days, because dealers didn’t accept plastic. Any barrier I could put between myself and a quick fix was a good idea.

  And physical labor was good for what ailed me. The only trick I knew for staying clean was to stay busy. Today that was easy enough. Exhausted, dirty, and reeking of tire rubber, I went upstairs for a quick shower. I used Sophie’s shampoo, and the green-apple scent rose around me in a mist. So now I would smell like a girl, but that was okay with me, because it was as close to a girl as I was likely to get anytime soon.

  Without a kitchen of any sort, I had to leave home every time I was hungry. So I got into my wreck of a car and puttered into the center of town. I couldn’t eat fast food for every meal, so I went into Max’s Tavern and ordered a Chicken Caesar wrap to go. The place was abuzz with guys enjoying happy hour, and all the tables were full of happy, sociable people.

  I envied them.

  Once upon a time I’d had friends, but they were all off limits now. The friends I’d made in high school were the type who showed me how to crush oxies and snort them.

  That’s why the rate of relapse was so high among druggies like me. It’s easy to be a champ in the controlled environment of rehab. You can promise yourself anything. Then you come out again, and the world is the same fucked-up place it was when you went in.

  When my sandwich was ready, I paid and left. I would have loved to plunk down on a bar stool and order a beer like a normal person. But I wasn’t a normal person. I’d given up that title when I’d learned how to dull my pain with drugs.

  So I got back into the Avenger, carefully stretching the sandwich wrapper across my lap to catch any crumbs.

  When I had the Porsche, I didn’t like to have food in it. Sophie used to roll her eyes when I suggested that we eat elsewhere. “We have sex in your car all the time,” she’d point out. “But dear God—don’t eat a granola bar.”

  Another fun part of being in recovery is rehashing all your ironies. I’d always kept my car clean. Meanwhile, I was dumping toxic substances into my body just as often as I could afford to.

  Good times.

  I’d only eaten one bite when a shiny sedan pulled into a parking spot on the other side of the divider, a few rows down from me. A dorky-looking guy in a turtleneck jumped out and hurried around to open the passenger door, making me grin. A first date, probably.

  When the girl stood up, I stopped grinning.

  Sophie. My heart gave a squeeze. What the hell was she doing in Vermont?

  I tossed the sandwich onto the passenger seat and leaned over the steering wheel to peer out into the night.

  It didn’t matter that her hair was longer than it used to be or that she was wearing an unfamiliar coat. The confident set of her shoulders was all Sophie. And the streetlight caught the classically beautiful curve of her cheek as she turned toward the guy.

  Even before I finished this thought, Mr. Turtleneck stepped into her space and grabbed her chin. Then he planted a kiss on her mouth.

  My blood stopped circulating.

  But then it started right up again when Sophie’s hands flew out to either side in a panic. Her body jerked to the side as she tried to get away from him.

  With my heart in my throat, I fumbled blindly for the door handle in what was still an unfamiliar car.

  By the time I’d managed to step out of my car, Sophie and her attacker were talking again. She’d crossed her arms in front of her chest, and he’d taken a heathy step back. His head was bowed in what looked like contrition.

  Jesus fuck. There was nobod
y on earth in whose life I was less welcome to interfere. Sophie would be better off if she didn’t set eyes on me until the end of her days. But I wouldn’t stand by while someone manhandled her.

  I took a hot breath and tried to get a grip on myself.

  I wasn’t near enough to hear what Sophie was saying to this dickwad. But she looked calm as she began to walk away. Then she seemed to pause, as if waiting for him to follow.

  After a moment and another exchange of conversation, he trailed after her.

  A second later, I was back in my seat and starting the engine. I backed out in a hurry, but then eased around the row of parked cars. They were walking side by side now, though Sophie still held her arms folded in that protective stance. When they’d gotten twenty-five yards down the sidewalk, I turned out of the parking lot and followed them.

  It wasn’t a long chase. A minute later they crossed the parking lot toward the bowling alley, of all places. I’d been there once with Sophie for a high school friend’s birthday party.

  Sweater guy held the door open for her, and seconds later they disappeared inside. I stopped my car. Don’t get out, I begged myself.

  And I didn’t. But my pulse was elevated, and my nerves were raw. Really raw. Everything was just so wrong. Sophie wasn’t supposed to be in Vermont at all. She was supposed to be living a brand new life in New York. And she sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be with some asshole who couldn’t control himself.

  As I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, the itch came for me. And I heard a panicked echo of my own voice in my head. I can’t handle this right now. I just need it to ease up for a minute. Just a little.

  Even before I knew what I was doing, I’d swung the car onto the road again. Three turns later, I was cruising down a dark street at the edge of town.