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After a day like today, the knowledge weighed heavy as she slipped out of the house and into the lake-scented darkness. Though Shay usually insisted on having help with the dinner dishes, tonight she’d shooed London from the kitchen. Due to pity, probably.
Not every teenager had a dead mother.
Not every teenager had a father who’d arrived years too late.
Hunching her shoulders, she tried shrugging off thoughts of Elsa as she headed toward the water. In their first week at Blue Arrow Lake, Shay had assigned her to read The Great Gatsby. In Daisy Buchanan, London had seen her mother. Beautiful, careless, childish. Elsa had been effusive some days and distant others. She’d followed boyfriends to foreign cities for weeks at a time, leaving London behind with their housekeeper, Opal, who was near a million years old and hailed from Boise, Idaho.
When Opal had needed to return to the States to take care of her sick sister, Elsa had been forced to cut short her latest trip. Between Budapest and their flat in Kensington, a train accident had taken her life.
And brought Jason Jennings into London’s.
She hunched her shoulders once more as she followed the shoreline, leaving behind their dock and the bobbing powerboat that Shay sometimes piloted. The only sound was the water lapping gently against the silty sand. It was midweek, and most of the houses along the lake were dark except for security lights. There wasn’t another person in sight.
Still, London had a more private destination in mind.
Three estates away, a dilapidated boathouse sat beside an equally run-down dock. Brand-new structures were located fifty feet from them, and on a morning walk, Shay had speculated that the old ones would be cleared away soon.
Before that happened, London wanted to spend more time inside the damp-smelling walls of the small, square building. Though her tutor likely wouldn’t approve, London had been hanging there for an hour or so almost every day. The padlock was broken and there were signs that she wasn’t the only visitor to the place.
It was those signs that fascinated her most.
The evidence of other teenagers, she was sure of it.
With a push of her hand, London swung open the door and peered into the dark interior. Before, she’d only visited during the day. In the gloom she could barely make out the usual litter: empty cans of Red Bull, Snickers candy wrappers, cigarette butts, a few moldy copies of GamerNews and People magazine. Seating choices consisted of various mismatched cushions that leaked stuffing and had been tossed onto the ragged indoor/outdoor carpeting.
Merely being around the debris of American kids made her feel closer to them. It was as if breathing in air they’d also shared could gain her entry into their world.
Suddenly, a flashlight flicked on.
On a breathless squeak, London jolted back, nearly falling. Regaining her balance, she saw the yellow circle of light jump along the walls as the figure wielding the instrument clambered to its feet.
His feet.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” a male voice said. Then the beam shifted, illuminating a face.
Everything inside London went still: her heart, her breath, the coursing of the blood beneath her skin. She knew that face. That tall, lean body. It was a boy she’d seen around town, always with a pack of other kids, always in a casual pose, comfortable with himself.
Who wouldn’t be comfortable with his tanned skin and his shock of dirty blond hair and with those very white teeth that seemed to be glowing like neon even in the darkness?
London swallowed. “I’m not scared,” she said.
She saw his head tilt, like a curious animal trying to figure out something new. “You have an accent.”
Not hardly! At least, she didn’t want to have one. The British kids she’d run into once in a blue moon said she didn’t sound like them. When she’d gone to school—and it was true that Elsa had not always been consistent on getting her to class—she’d attended an all-girl American school with American teachers.
Since she was twelve, she’d exclusively watched American television, determined to become what she considered the epitome of confidence and cool—the typical American teen.
“Cat got your tongue, England?” the boy asked.
“It’s London,” she was forced to admit. “It’s my name...and also where I’ve been living.” Since coming to Blue Arrow she’d been trying out different city names—US city names—to replace her own, as if selecting a new one would obliterate her otherness. But the minute Shay had started to explain that to her father today, it had seemed foolish. Babyish. Like believing in Santa or expecting visits from the Tooth Fairy.
Elsa had cleared up those misconceptions right away, despite Opal’s protests.
“Huh,” the handsome guy said now. “London...I like it.”
Emboldened by the compliment—giddy!—she voiced a question of her own. “And you are...?”
“Colton. Colton Halliday.”
Colton Halliday. London repeated the name in her head. It sounded like the name of a cowboy or a Wild West gunslinger. Very American and maybe even a tiny bit dangerous.
Though she didn’t feel afraid around him, she’d been truthful about that. Just warm and excited and like she was poised to begin the life she’d been waiting for. Until this moment, she’d been the victim of everyone else’s whims—her mother taking her to Europe, her father sending her to Blue Arrow Lake, Shay insisting on Gatsby and Shakespeare and that boring history book about Western civilization.
Colton slid down the wall so he was seated again. He set the flashlight beside him so its beam washed up the dingy wall and cast half his face in light, half in shadow. “What are you doing out here?”
She took one small step inside. “I live back that way.” She made a vague gesture. “You?”
“Promise you won’t tell?” he asked, though he didn’t sound too worried either way.
“Sure.”
“We local kids, you know, full-timers on the mountain, we have a few places, hideouts I’d guess you’d call them, where we go to chill. This is one of them.”
Hideouts. London nodded, pretending a teen-only retreat wasn’t completely beyond her previous sheltered—okay, freak—existence. “Just you tonight?”
“I had to get away from the parental units for a little while. They can be a pain in the ass, right?”
“Right.” London dug her toe into the worn carpeting. “My mother’s dead.” Her hand clapped over her mouth. What was wrong with her?
“God.” He twitched, then was silent a moment. “God, I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s okay. I...” Miserably embarrassed, she stepped back again.
“Don’t go,” Colton said. “I shouldn’t have...”
His discomfort only made her feel worse. “It’s okay.”
“Come back in, I don’t bite. You probably need a little downtime, too.”
Dueling desires warred within her. To go, to stay, to allow him to bite her. Goose bumps burst in hot prickles all over her skin at the thought. Biting! She’d never even been kissed. Yeah, at fifteen, she was unkissed.
Total freak.
“So, you go to school down the hill or something?”
Down the hill encompassed every place that wasn’t the surrounding mountains. London had learned that from Shay. “No,” she said, coming inside so she could make her own slide along the wall. They were propped on opposite sides of the small structure, London situated closest to the still-open door. “I’m sort of being homeschooled at the moment. I have a live-in tutor.”
Colton released a low whistle as he drew up his knees and draped his wrists over them. In the low illumination from the flashlight, she stared at his hands. They were long-fingered and bony-looking. Not like a skeleton, just...bony like a boy’s hands. Like a boy’s hands should be.
“How’s that?” he asked. “A live-in tutor? No dozing off during class, I suppose.”
“No.” If pressed, she’d probably admit she liked Shay. Yes, there was the dusting and the vacuuming and the Western civ book, but the woman had also been tolerant of her name experiments—which seemed even stupider now that Colton Halliday said he liked London.
Shay paid attention, too. She was the only one to ever notice that when it came to bubbling test answers, London had a peculiar technique. The first time she’d turned in a score sheet, Shay had taken one look at the paper then tossed it back. “Love the long-stemmed rose,” she’d said drily, noting the pattern London had made with her No. 2. “Now put your efforts into answers, not illustrations.”
“Finals are coming up at the high school,” Colton said. “That’s what my parents are on my case about. Studying. Hell, I can’t wait for summer.”
“What will you do then?”
“Hang with friends, swim, hike. I have a part-time job scooping ice cream, too. Gotta save for college...only a year away.”
Meaning he was going to be a senior next year. That seemed way older than her.
“What about you, England?”
“I’m—” She stopped herself from blurting out fifteen.
“Hey, I thought you liked London?”
His grin glowed again, seeming to light up the whole room. “I like ‘England,’ too, since I came up with it. My special name for you.”
Another riot of goose bumps bloomed over her body. “That’s all right, I guess.” It was better than all right!
“So...are you going to be around this summer?”
She shrugged, trying to play it casual. “Sure.”
“Then maybe we’ll see each other again.” Colton rose to his feet. “I gotta go now. Chemistry homework due tomorrow.”
London stood, too, pressing her shoulder blades against the wall to hold herself up because her knees felt wobbly as he drew near. “See you around, then,” she said as he passed through the doorway.
“Yeah, see you.” He turned, walking backward as he looked at her, the moonlight silvering his hair. “How old are you, England?”
“Seventeen,” she replied, without a single betraying quaver in her voice. It didn’t matter that it was a lie; it was her next foray into the life she’d been waiting to begin.
Fifteen-year-old London, who’d lost her mother and only just met her father, was an outcast, that freak she’d always felt like. But London, nicknamed “England” by a handsome, soon-to-be high school senior, was the master of her fate and the captain of her soul.
And surely, surely seventeen.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_b0915ec1-4a99-53ec-9474-653e2f97435b)
SHAY BUSIED HERSELF at the sink, swishing the dishcloth in the soapy water contained by one of the mixing bowls she’d used in preparing the evening meal. The chicken enchilada dinner had gone okay, she supposed, and she was relieved that she and Jace—his real name—seemed to be of the same mind.
The mind in which the Deerpoint Inn didn’t exist.
Or, at least, of the mind that they weren’t the same two people who had spent a night there together.
If the three of them were going to share the house for the summer, Shay’s relationship with London’s father needed to be polite, professional and impersonal. Surely she could manage that.
Then, even with her hand buried in the warm water on a warm night, a cold fingertip trailed down her spine. She froze, her prey-sense kicking in. Someone was behind her.
Lifting her gaze to the window over the sink, she saw a man reflected in the glass. His height, his breadth, the very masculine mass of him seemed to press the air from the room. Her heart skipped as he strode inside on silent feet until only the expanse of the stainless-steel-topped island separated them.
Calm down, Shay admonished herself. He’s no predator. He’s nothing to you, not even that attractive man at the bar who was so charming at dinner and so blissful in bed.
As a matter of fact, he was the kind of man she wouldn’t find appealing at all. Upon learning of his ex’s death, he’d made exactly one phone call to his daughter and then left her in others’ care—without another word for weeks. Sure, Shay was self-aware enough to know she had a chip on her shoulder when it came to paternal issues, but anyone would agree that Jace should have maintained tighter contact since becoming London’s sole guardian.
“Where’s the kid?” he asked now, his voice low.
The sound of it—damn—reminded her of the night before. His voice, both rough and soft in the darkness as he murmured against the skin of her throat, as he whispered in the hot shell of her ear. Your breasts fit perfectly in my hands. Open your mouth for my tongue. Spread your thighs. Let me feel your wet heat.
“Shay?”
She jumped, and shook herself free of the memories. That man was not this one. The lover had been attentive and generous. This...stranger was neither of those things. “London is in her room, I believe.”
“Look at me, will you?” he said. “We need to talk.”
No, they didn’t. And looking at him, looking into those lion-gold eyes, wasn’t going to put them on that all-important professional footing. Maybe tomorrow, with more time and distance since they’d shared kisses, breath, a bed, she would have her armor intact and her memories safely locked away.
Maybe she could fully face him then.
The harsh screech of the bar-stool legs against the polished concrete floor scraped her nerves. He was sitting instead of going away, she thought with a grimace.
But there was an odd heaviness to the sound of his body dropping into the chair. Without thinking, Shay swung around, only to see Jace sprawled in the seat, his elbows on the island, his head in his hands.
“What is it?” she asked, alarmed.
“I’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Is it the elevation again?” She hurried to get him a glass of cold water. “Drink this down.”
He didn’t move. “No.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped. “If you’re afraid I’ll think less of you if your machismo takes another hit, forget about it. I—”
“Already don’t think much of me?” he finished for her, lifting his head.
He looked terrible. There were lines of pain around his eyes and he squinted as if the light were torture.
“Why would you say that?” she asked, ignoring her guilty flush.
His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I caught the hint from those emails you sent.”
Shay swallowed. Not only had she written all that stuff about dancing lessons and field trips to chocolate factories, but she also recalled subtly—or maybe not so subtly—expressing her opinion on absentee parenting. “You read them?”
“Finally. After I recovered.”
Her eyes rounded. “Um...recovered? Recovered from what?”
