Shannon whipped around. “You can’t do that! Then she’ll know!”
“We’re eighteen years old. It’s none of her damned business.”
“My mother makes everything her business.”
She grabbed for her jeans and dragged them on. He did the same, then watched as she fumbled with her shirt buttons. He wanted to hold her. To let her know he’d go to war with anyone on this earth who tried to come between them. But she was so frantic he didn’t know what to say. How to calm her. How to make her understand that her mother showing up meant nothing as long as they loved each other.
She reached for her boots. “I have to go. Now.”
“No. You don’t have to do anything.”
“Luke, please! If my mother finds out about this, she’ll kill me!”
“I won’t let her.”
“Do you think she’s going to listen to you?”
“I’ll make her listen.”
“No!” she whispered wildly. “Don’t you get it? You can’t tell anyone about this! Nobody!”
Luke stared at her blankly for a moment as her words sank in. After this, he thought…he thought this meant something. But it didn’t. Shannon wasn’t only horrified at the thought of her mother knowing. She was horrified at the thought of anyone knowing.
As the truth came to him, slowly, painfully, he sank to a bale of hay, his knees suddenly too weak to hold him up. This had meant everything to him. Everything. But to her?
Nothing. Less than nothing.
But he’d seen something more in her eyes. He knew he had.
He thought he had.
Oh, God. Maybe he hadn’t seen anything at all. Maybe all this really had meant nothing.
You’re a goddamned fool! She doesn’t love you! She probably doesn’t even like you!
Now he knew. All Shannon wanted tonight was to feel as if she was being bad for once in her life. And who better to do that with than a guy like him? But now, when it came to admitting what she’d done, she was horrified. And the fact that he’d been too damned naïve to understand that right off the bat made him feel as if he was the dumbest person alive.
“I can’t tell anybody?” he said, giving her a sarcastic smile, even as his heart was breaking. “Are you sure?”
“That’s not funny.”
“But this is just too good,” he said, pulling out a cigarette. “Surely I could let a word or two slip here or there, couldn’t I?” He lit the cigarette and took a drag, hoping his hands weren’t shaking.
A look of desperation flooded her face. “No! You can’t do that to me!”
Luke felt a stab of anguish. As if the world knowing he loved her would hurt her?
“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” he said, a mocking tone inching into his voice. “Nobody would ever believe a girl like you gave it up for anyone, much less the likes of me.”
“Don’t say that!”
“This isn’t about the sex, is it? It’s about who the sex was with. If you’d done it with some rich boy, your mother would probably throw a party.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
She pulled her boots on, then stood up. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”
“Sure, Shannon,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “No problem. Meet me back up here tomorrow night and we’ll ‘talk.’”
“Luke, please! You know what my mother is like. Can you at least try to understand?”
He took another drag on his cigarette in the most disinterested way he could. “Go home, Shannon. Mommy’s waiting for you.”
“But—”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” he muttered. “Will you just get the hell out of here?”
Shannon paused a moment more, looking at him plaintively. He thought for a moment she was going to come rushing back to him, telling him she didn’t give a damn who knew they’d been together. That she cared about him. Loved him, even. Instead, she turned and rushed down the ladder, and he was drenched in misery all over again.
He dropped his head to his hands, every word she’d spoken filling him with the kind of humiliation that made him want to crawl into a hole and die. A minute later, he could just make out Shannon’s voice outside the barn telling her mother she’d stayed late to take care of an injured horse. When her mother asked why Luke’s car was there, Shannon told her it wouldn’t start, so he’d walked home hours ago.