Fugitive Heart - By Bonnie Dee Page 0,29
a little crazy. I learn my brother’s involved with criminals. I know we’re in danger. I feel sick with this, I feel like sobbing, but mostly I feel like having my way with you. That’s just creepy. If you hadn’t stopped us back on the porch, I would have had your pants down and my skirt up and… Good thing you took less than five minutes inside the house. I was this close to bolting inside and joining you in the shower. I ought to be worrying about the people who’re after Elliot and us. Instead, I spent the time imagining you naked.”
He had to swallow down the wave of lust her words conjured in his body. “Ever hear about how danger and sorrow make a person want to do something life affirming?”
“No.”
“Sounds about right, though, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe it sounds right to you. To me, it sounds crazy.” She tilted her head back, exposing her pale throat. Nick could really do with more life affirming about now, starting with licking that throat.
He pulled out of the driveway and onto the back road instead. No sign of traffic was a nice change for him, but the dirt and badly maintained roads wreaked havoc on a car. In his constant city versus country contest, car travel ended up a draw.
Her eyes still closed, she said, “Tell me.”
He didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t know what she meant.
“When I hit eighteen, I was past the easy time.”
“I don’t understand. From everything I know, the early teen years are far less easy. Eighteen is past the really tough adolescent years.”
“I mean the easy time in jail. If I broke a law, I wasn’t going to get off easy. It would go on my permanent record.”
“Oh, right.” She gave him a swift, narrow-eyed look.
“Look, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not like I killed or even hurt anyone.” Back then. “I just ended up as part of a group of guys who robbed a liquor store after closing. We went out drinking, and suddenly there was Bert, messing with the alarm code. He had some new toy he wanted to use, he told us. A code breaker.”
They’d been laughing and playing. Nick had been drunk, and the whole night felt like they were flying with the power of being young and with a group of guys he’d known forever. Laughing and…
He scowled when he saw how she stared at him, as if she thought he was as despicable as a child rapist. Sure, the night’s memories felt scummy now—but he still felt the need to argue with her and his conscience.
“We didn’t get any money. Not much, anyway, maybe fifty bucks because the business had closed out the cash drawer. And we grabbed a couple of six-packs. It was more just messing around and seeing what we could do. That’s what I thought. But even though we’d knocked out the cameras—disabled them, I mean—don’t glare like that, Ames, we didn’t even break the cameras, for God’s sake. Anyway, the cameras there weren’t working, but Bert had a camera of his own.”
The next part embarrassed Nick, but Ames had stopped frowning. Now she just waited and watched him, so he continued. “Bert managed to take video and shots of me in the store—incriminating stuff. A day later, I got a call explaining the concept of what Bert called mutual leverage. Along the lines of ‘we’ve got your dirty secret, and that helps us feel better knowing you’ve got a couple of ours.’ It felt like crap being dicked around by a guy I thought was my friend, but I understood. This was how they’d feel safer about me. I’d made it clear since high school that I wasn’t interested in any aspect of the business, not even the legitimate side. So in a way, Bert helped me go on my own merry way.”
He turned from the bumpy country road onto the highway. “After that night, I learned my lesson. I’d go out clubbing with them now and then, but no more partying hard. No more drinking a lot. No more extracurricular activities.”
“That all sounds horrible.”
Nick tried to explain. “They could have threatened me with violence or framed me for something I didn’t do, whatever—but Bert liked to make it real.” Also, Bert enjoyed messing with people’s minds on a small scale. So did his dad, Cesar, who was far more likely to use violence to get the message across.”
“So you still stayed friends?”
“Not really. After