Rogue's Revenge - By Gail MacMillan Page 0,47
her room, she slammed the door, locked it, and fell face down onto her bed.
“I’ll never, ever feel romantic about any man as long as I live,” she sobbed into her pillow. “Falling in love is just something stupid people write about in books, stupid, stupid books!”
She’d never told anyone what had happened. She’d been too ashamed.
****
The howl of a coyote startled her back to the present, and Allison glanced over her shoulder into the darkness. A form emerged, a form that was Heath.
“Here.” He handed her a pointed stick. “The coals look ready.”
“Sure…okay.” She took the slender branch and reached for the package of wieners.
Her fingers fumbled with the plastic packaging, and suddenly he was squatting in front of her, covering her trembling hands with his.
“Allie, what’s wrong?”
In the glow of the dying fire she couldn’t see his face distinctly, but his use of her grandfather’s pet name softened her to the heart.
“Nothing… A coyote howled.”
“Level with me…for once.” His tone brooked no denial.
“I was…remembering.” She let the package drop from her hands and allowed her gaze to rest on his hands clasped over hers. “Our last wiener roast.”
“Allie…” The word came in a soft, aching breath. “God, Allie, I’m sorry.”
“W…what?”
“For what I did that night. I was fresh out of a tough juvenile facility where forcing yourself on a girl was considered the macho thing to do, and, after Jennifer, I was out to take my revenge on the first rich girl who crossed my path.”
Allison felt his fingers beneath her chin. When he raised her face to a level with his, she hated the tears she felt brimming in her eyes.
“You…you destroyed my spirit of romance,” she choked. “You took away all the mystery and magic. You were the reason I never came back to the Chance. I couldn’t stand the sight of you!”
“You’re telling me I’m the reason you never came back to visit Jack? Sweet Jesus, Allie!” His eyes stared deep into hers, so deep he might be looking down into her soul.
“It doesn’t matter now. There’s no going back. I can’t undo the loneliness Gramps suffered. I can’t get that magic back in my heart.” Those damn tears slid down her cheeks.
“Don’t.” He leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. “Please, Allie, don’t. I can’t watch you hurt any more.”
Astonished by his tenderness for a moment, she didn’t speak. Then she shrugged away, wiped the tears with the back of her hand, and looked down at the package of wieners on the gravel between them.
“Just forget it, okay? Open the wieners. I assume your knife is still sharp?” She sniffed herself back into control.
“Right.” He picked up the celluloid pack in one hand, pulled his knife from its scabbard with the other, and, in a single, swift gesture, slit it open. “Here.” He handed it back to her. “Eat.”
Their second pair of wieners were browning over the coals before he spoke again.
“Dogwood,” he said.
“What?” Surprised, she looked over at him as he squatted across the fire pit from her.
“These sticks we’re using, they’re dogwood, probably the hardest wood of all time. Their branches were once used to make daggers and were known as dagger wood. Time corrupted it to dogwood.”
“Interesting,” she replied vaguely, returning her gaze to the roasting wiener.
“Another legend states it was named dogwood because it proved effective in curing mange in dogs.”
“Charming.” She glanced over at him and, even in the flickering light, caught the gleam of mischief in his eyes.
He removed the cooked wiener from its skewer, plunked in into a roll, and applied mustard. Then he picked up the half-empty bottle of lime soda beside him and took a drink. “Hard to believe I like this stuff.”
“Given time, I suppose a person can develop a taste for almost anything.” She bit into her hot dog. “I’d forgotten how good these can be.”
“Nothing like food cooked in the outdoors. There’s a lot more you’ll discover you’ve been missing, if you’ll give yourself a chance to experience it.”
“I said I’d forgotten how good these can be. I didn’t say I’d never had better or that I wanted a steady diet of them.”
“Okay.” He finished his hot dog and handed her a cellophane bag. “Here, roast a marshmallow. Might sweeten your disposition.”
He stood ten minutes later. “Don’t forget to bury the tip of your stick in the sand. Bears can smell sweet stuff a long way off.”
He skewered his own cooking stick into the earth, stretched, yawned, picked up a cooking