Everything You've Got: Anything & Everything, Book 2 (26 page)

He couldn’t deny that he’d really like it if that were true.

“Sherilynn and Heather.”

That took him a second. “You… What do you mean?”

She looked at him and then laughed. “Did your mind go to something lesbian there for a second, Luke?”

“No… I mean…”

She pushed against his shoulder, but he didn’t allow her to move him far. “Sherilynn and Heather were the popular girls, the ones who always got their way, the ones who made the rules, who reigned supreme.”

Sherilynn Conner and Heather Mayfield had, indeed, been the queens of Justice High.

“So?”

“They made my sister miserable.”

Kat’s older sister Isabelle had been a shy, sweet girl. She’d been smart, normal, though a little timid. Luke thought about her for a moment, but nothing really came to mind. She’d seemed to blend into the crowd.

“Miserable how?” He didn’t remember Isabelle running with Heather and Sherilynn.

“Literally miserable. They made fun of her, teased her, pretended to be her friend, then stood her up or left her out.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “You know, I’m glad Sabrina’s drama was with her dad. That I could understand. Females make no sense.”

Kat sighed. “Women can be mean, no doubt about it. Some never grow out of it. But they used Isabelle to make themselves feel more important. And I hated that she let them. I told her all the time that she needed to just cut them out of her life completely. But she wanted to be a part of their crowd. She did anything they told her. It made her depressed. And bulimic.”

“Bulimic?” Luke frowned. He hadn’t known about that.

She nodded, her eyes downcast on the sheets. “It started when they told her that no one in their group could be more than a size four. God,” she said looking up at him. “Can you imagine? A size four? Those bitches.”

Luke felt tight through his chest. “She still have problems?”

“She’s much better, but yeah, she still has trouble worrying about how she looks, what others think of her. She still has to fight the urge to binge sometimes when she’s stressed.”

“I never knew.”

“We kept it really quiet.” Kat’s voice was soft, her eyes back on the sheet. “I hated them, Luke. I wanted to beat the crap out of them, sleep with their boyfriends, steal all their shoes…”

He couldn’t help it. He knew it wasn’t completely appropriate, but he chuckled. “You didn’t do any of those. Did you?” It occurred to him that there might be some things about Kat that he didn’t know and that the small-town grapevine hadn’t provided.

“I, um…” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t steal any shoes.”

He coughed. “Oh?”

“Isabelle was in the hospital right before I cut my hair and everything.”

“That was connected?”

She nodded. “I wanted to be a person that they wouldn’t mess with. I wanted to be kick-ass, intimidating, above their influence. So, I put on this tough-girl image.” She wiggled, as if getting more comfortable for her story.

He spread his palm wide over her rib cage, content just to touch her, feel the warmth of her skin.

“And it worked?” He didn’t remember anyone giving Kat a hard time in school.

“It worked. It worked even better after I approached Heather in the parking lot after school and told her that if she ever fucked with me or my sister, or any other girl in school, I would kick her ass, sleep with her boyfriend and put itching powder in her cheerleading uniform.”

He chuckled again in spite of himself. “Wow.”

“And then I proved it.”

He pulled back slightly to look down at her. “What do you mean?”

“She cornered Isabelle in the locker room one afternoon after school. So I followed her out to the parking lot and punched her in the face. Then that Friday after the football game her boyfriend, Troy Anderson, ended up getting to third base with me in his backseat.”

“Um. Wow. Again.” What else could he really say? “I don’t remember hearing anything about you and Troy Anderson.” He frowned. It had been years ago, but he still wanted to kick Troy’s ass.

“I only had to do it one other time when they picked on Molly Stevens.”

Luke vaguely remembered Molly. She was a couple of years younger than they were.

“Heather again?”

“Yeah. She was dating Jake Carter.”

He wanted to kick Jake’s ass too. “So you defended everyone?”

“You bet. Those bitches would have messed with anyone and everyone if they could. But they couldn’t mess with me. I could deliver a right hook and get any guy naked that I wanted to.”

He felt his scowl deepen. He didn’t doubt that for a moment.

She went on. “Usually I just had to give them an evil eye, a reminder note in their locker, a little nudge in the hallway. I was watching them and they couldn’t get away with being mean.”

Luke shook his head, a little impressed in spite of himself. “You were like a superhero—defending all those girls against the bullies.”

“The most fun I ever had.”

He ran his finger around the swirl on her thigh. “How did I not hear about Troy and Jake?”

“I don’t know. It was big gossip.”

“Maybe not. Maybe the guys I hung out with…”

“No,” she cut him off. “Everyone. You just weren’t listening.”

He frowned. That couldn’t be true. “I honestly don’t remember any of this. About your feud with Sherilynn and Heather, your messing around with those guys, your sister… How’s that possible? I thought we were friends.”

“So it’s my fault that you weren’t paying attention to me?”

There was a coolness in her tone that made him prop up on his elbow. “What’s that mean?”

He felt her pull away even though she didn’t seem to move. “You were distracted. I wouldn’t expect you to know anything I—or anyone else—was doing.”

O-kay.

“What are you talking about?”

She sighed. “It’s probably not really your fault. You were inside the Sabrina bubble. You spent all your time either with her dad or with her.”

“I didn’t spend
all
—”

“You did.”

And she was right.

“Okay, I did,” he admitted. “But…” he snuggled in closer, putting his lips against the sweet skin of her neck, “…I’m firmly inside your bubble now.”

He felt the tension leave her body. “You’re damned right you are,” she whispered as she pressed into him. “And I’m going to make it so you never want to leave.”

Already there.

Later that night, Kat awakened, tangled in the bedsheets and Luke’s limbs.

She sighed and snuggled closer. God, she liked this. She wanted to be held by Luke like this every night, forever and ever amen. She wanted to feel, touch, taste him all the time, any time. She wanted to have the right to look across the room and know that she could pull him into the nearest coat closet and have her way with him, or simply know that at the end of the night, he was going home with her.

She wanted him to tell her all his secrets, and she wanted him to know all of hers.

And she had. He’d been sweet, supportive, so quick to believe only the best of her.

Kat sighed and turned over onto her back. It all seemed so perfect, so easy. He kept saying he wanted it all, with her.

And he knew what was happening back in Justice.

But she couldn’t shake the niggling doubt that it wasn’t quite the mad, head-over-heels, climb-the-highest-mountain-swim-the-deepest-sea love that she’d need if life crumbled once she got home. If she didn’t have a job—worse, if she had a bad reputation—what would he do? Still want her? Even love her? Yes, maybe. But would he choose to be with her instead of being in Justice?

Not bloody likely.

Fuck.

She was going to lose everything.

Luke rolled to his side in his sleep and his arm tightened around her, pulling her closer. He buried his nose in her hair and sighed contentedly.

She felt tears prick her eyelids.

She was running out of time with Luke.

Suddenly something banged against the side of the RV, making her sit straight up in bed. It sounded like a gunshot.

Luke groaned and sat up slower. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know.”

She became aware of the fact that something was pounding on the roof of the RV as well.

Luke yawned. “That’s rain.”

Another loud bang sounded against the side, sounding right outside their window. “That’s not.”

They rolled to opposite sides of the bed simultaneously and reached for their clothes. They hurriedly dressed and headed for the door.

Luke went first and pushed the door open a crack. It was instantly flung wide, banging against the side of the RV as the wind caught it. Diagonally falling sheets of rain hit them, soaking the front of their shirts with cold water.

“Holy crap!” Kat gasped.

“We’d better get back in…”

Just then a lawn chair went tumbling past before slamming into a picnic table. It was clear that’s what had smashed into their RV. The party had broken up before much cleanup had been done and the area around them was covered with tipped lawn chairs, overturned trash cans and garbage, a plastic tarp, even jackets and blankets, and several branches and piles of leaves. Everything was drenched, actually floating in some areas where there were depressions in the landscape, and scattered even farther than the party had strewn it.

“We’ve got to gather some of this stuff up,” Kat said over the sound of the storm. “One of those chairs could go through somebody’s window.”

A cooler—obviously empty—tipped off the picnic table closest to them, landing so that the lid snapped off.

Luke looked from the cooler to Kat with an eyebrow up. “Let’s get this over with.”

As they took deep breaths and plunged into the storm, another RV door opened and Matt and Sheila Carson emerged, ducking against the rain. The wind was too strong to really talk with anything less than a shout, but with some pretty creative sign language they spread out and began chasing blowing chairs and picking up sodden paper.

It took about ten seconds to become completely wet. After ten minutes even her underwear was soaked.

Kat’s hair was plastered against her head, her clothes clung and she was freezing, but as they ran and splashed she found herself breathless and laughing. She caught Luke’s eye as he stepped in the middle of a huge puddle trying to grab a bag of aluminum cans that was rolling across the grass. He looked sexy. He was drenched but grinning and she realized that she loved that about him. Luke did what had to be done and managed to enjoy it—even in the cold rain.

By the time they’d gathered everything, the other couples from the surrounding RVs had materialized as well and they had the area, if not clean, at least secure from blowing metal and hard plastic objects.

Luke grabbed her hand and pointed to the RV. She nodded and they turned to wave at their temporary neighbors, then sprinted for warm, dry shelter.

Bursting into the RV panting and laughing, they slammed the door shut and stood shivering and dripping.

“I guess we might as well just strip down here,” she said, looking at the puddle forming around her feet.

“I’m not going to talk you out of stripping, ever, for any reason,” Luke said, getting out of his clothes quickly.

She was literally shaking with cold but still appreciated the naked man who headed for the bathroom and towels, and she peeled her clothes off, turning them inside out.

He handed her a towel and she quickly wrapped up. He wiped his arms, shoulder and hair, then draped the towel around his waist. Then he took a smaller towel and stepped close.

“You’re going to hate what I’m about to tell you.” He lifted the towel to her face and patted her forehead and cheeks.

“What?”

He pulled the towel back and held it up for her to see. Pink streaks colored the white terry cloth.

Her hand flew to her head. Her hair dye was washing out. Then she covered her eyes. “My makeup washed off too?”

“Um…”

She swiped a finger under her right eye. The pad of her finger turned black.

She groaned. “I must look terrible.”

Luke took her hand and pulled it away from her face. “You’re gorgeous,” he said softly.

She looked into his eyes. She loved him. She wanted him. And she had only a few days to really show him before they went back to Justice and…whatever awaited.

She took a deep breath, dropped her hands and let him wipe the rain, makeup and hair dye from her face. He did it in gentle strokes, a half smile curling his lips, a tender look in his eyes.

“I love how you look,” he said. “Always.”

Then he kissed her.

She thought he’d rocked her world before with the hunger and passion and heat they always produced, but this kiss—sweet, almost reverent, full of affection—was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Or even imagined.