OhGod, ohGod, what have I done? I feel so—Oh, God, I feel so…
Powerful.
In command of the situation.
I draw myself erect and my breathing evens out. I run a final organized, assessing gaze over the clearing to make sure I have left nothing behind.
I killed a man today. Me, the woman who abhors socially incorrect behavior, killed a man. And, oh, God help me.
I liked it.
Hayley sat and simmered in the rocking chair long after Jon-Michael left. How dare he berate her for feeling betrayed by her ex-best-friend's failure to keep her secrets. “Don't hold it against her, Hayley,” she mimicked bitterly. “She is hurting, too, Hayley.”
Blood certainly was thicker than water.
Fine. She did not give a great big rip. Let him defend his darling sister, attack her, then walk away. Talk about typical. Once again Hayley Granger Prescott was left to face her screwed up life all on her own. Jon-Michael didn’t stick around when the going got rough.
Like that was a big surprise. She’d known going in this relationship was based on one thing and one thing only. When it came to the bottom line it was about the sex. Good sex, great sex even, but when all was said and done, theirs was merely a physical connection.
I am not the one in this relationship who has been dancing around the truth.
Okay, the past two nights their physical connection had been nonexistent. They hadn’t made love. Jon-Michael had simply wrapped her in his arms and held her. He’d called Bluey and told him she couldn't come in when she had shown no inclination to get dressed and face the outside world. And the only time he’d left her side was to go to work himself. Even then he had come straight back home again.
Yeah, well, big deal. He was probably softening her up for the big pitch about poor, pitiful Kurstin. Kurstin, who had always been Hayley’s one reliable haven when she desperately needed her. Kurstin who had ripped Hayley's heart out and handed it to her sleazy, lowlife boyfriend to feed to the wolves. Her sleazy, lowlife boyfriend who—
Ripped Kurstie's heart out, too.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror across the room as she slowly climbed to her feet. “Good God.”
She studied the reflection of her dull skin, looked down at her wrinkled shirt. She was a mess. Running a hand through her stringy hair, she crossed to the phone to call Bluey.
Then she went to take a shower.
Kurstin sat on the dock and stared blindly out at the lake. The sun was hot on her shoulders but she felt frozen inside. Thighs hugged to her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins, she rocked in silent misery.
She had messed up in the worst way and was afraid she would never be allowed to atone for her abysmal lack of judgment. How had everything fallen apart so damn fast? One minute she’d it all. Then the next…poof! Everything was gone.
She’d fallen for Ty like Lucifer from heaven—and had been exposed for the dumb shit she was before the entire town. He’d left her with nothing: no pride, no faith in her own judgment and certainly no love. The public nature of her humiliation hurt; she didn't deny it. It was nothing, however, next to the very real fear haunting her every waking moment.
Since her mom’s death, only her brother and Hayley had loved her unconditionally. It was their good opinion she valued. She knew Jon-Michael already forgave her. But what if Hayley wouldn't? If she couldn't?
What if she left town and never talked to her again?
Seriously? She infused a touch of steel back in her spine. If your guilt doesn't kill you first, your melodramatic, overwrought what-ifs probably will.
But if Hayley didn’t forgive her, if she did pack up and leave rather than remain in the same town with her, then damn Ty Holloway's black soul to everlasting hell.
For he truly would have taken from her one of the few things of value she had left.
Hayley ran the gauntlet of journalists to reach her car. They were as pushy, loud, and intrusive as ever, but taking a page from Jon-Michael's book, she stripped off the kid gloves in her dealings with them. She kept her head up, her mouth shut, and looked neither right nor left as she plowed a path through the crowd to the Pontiac. She used her elbows when they did not move quickly enough and slammed her fist down on the fingers of the opportunist who curled his hand over the driver's door to detain her. Ripping a microphone out of another's hands when it was shoved in her face, she aimed for maximum damage when she hurled the sensitive piece of electronics to the ground.
The Pontiac, cranky from its lack of use the past several days, groaned and complained when she turned the ignition. Finally, and with grudging ill will, the engine turned over, coughed, then caught. Hayley reached for the radio dial and cranked up the volume. The Shins helped drown out the cacophony of voices yelling questions at her. Questions echoing Hayley's most deeply held doubts.
"Hayley, I need to talk to you!"
How she picked up on one voice when so many were competing for her attention, she didn’t know, but her head swung around and she scanned the street. "Patsy?"
Then she spotted her friend parked down the block waving a beckoning arm at her. The other woman leaned out her car window and Hayley reached for the volume knob on the radio to turn it down.
The moment Patsy saw she had her attention, she called again, "I need to talk to you!"
For crying out loud, Patsy, now? Right here? Her old schoolmate's obliviousness to anything unconnected to her own agenda astounded her. It shouldn't, she supposed; it was the new Patsy’s standard operating procedure. Hey, Pats wanted a tete a tete? Why let a little thing like a dozen glory-hungry reporters get in the way?
Swallowing her exasperation, she yelled, "Go to the Devil," and put the car in gear, moving it inexorably forward through the crowd surrounding her.
Her determination must have shown, for the journalists fell back. See me work my magic on the Red Sea, she thought with self-deprecating humor. Moses’s got nothing on this girl.
After all, he did not have a deteriorating drop-top Pontiac.
It was the first small tug of amusement she had experienced in what felt like eons.
She pulled onto the outlook at Devil's Outcrop ten minutes later. When Patsy pulled her car to a stop alongside her moments later Hayley was perched on the car's hood, her feet on the front bumper.
She watched Patsy climb out of the car and slam the door. She looks different. There was a glow to Patsy’s cheeks, a brightness to her eyes, Hayley had never noticed before. "You look like you have a secret, Pats," she said and then winced. That was not her favorite word of the moment. But a marvelous thought occurred to her and it perked her right up. "Omigawd, are you pregnant?"
"Pregnant?" the other woman blinked, clearly blindsided by the question. "Why would you think that?"
"Because you look so, I don't know, radiant or something."
Patsy's fingers came up to brush her hair away from her temple. "I do?"
"You definitely do. I noticed it right away."
I can not help myself, I preen a little. Lately, it has seemed almost as if Hayley does not really want to be my friend anymore. Yet here she is telling me I look radiant. Maybe I should re-think some of the dark thoughts I have been entertaining.
"So are you?" Palms pressed flat against the hood, her heels lightly drumming the grill, Hayley narrows her eyes, subjecting me to a closer inspection. "You have that glow about you, which means you have either spent the afternoon with your husband screwing your brains out, or you’re pregnant." She smiled. "It's gotta be one or the other."