Never Let You Go (6 page)

“Anna’s hot for you, Jordan,” someone said. It sounded like Isaac. Anna gasped and nudged Megan so hard she almost fell over. Megan eased her head up to the window again.

Jordan sat on the kitchen table now, elbows leaning on his knees. He laughed. “Yeah, can you tell?”

Robert giggled, a surprisingly high, girlish sound. “I thought she was going to jump you right there at the table.” He snapped a dish towel in Jordan’s direction. “You liked it, come on.”

“Ehhh.” Jordan shrugged.

Megan looked at Anna’s face in the half light. Anna’s lip trembled, as if she might cry.

It’s okay
, Megan mouthed to her friend, but Anna didn’t seem to notice. She was focused on the scene within the kitchen.

Jordan continued. “Whatever, she’s nice. Cute.”

Anna drew in her breath sharply and her face lit up. She grabbed Megan’s hand, digging her nails into the palm. “He does like me!” she whispered.

“Hey, you think we get to drive the tractor?” Isaac shut off the water.

“Yeah, that would be awesome,” Robert agreed. Their voices faded as Anna pulled Megan around the house to the footpath. Megan could just make out the sides of the trail in the darkness. After a minute, her eyes adjusted and she could see ahead enough not to walk into a tree.

“Oh my God!” Anna squealed again as soon as they were away from the house. She clasped her hands in the middle of her chest. “Did you hear him?”

“Yeah, he said you were cute—that’s great,” Megan said encouragingly. “See? He does like you.” A huge yawn almost split her head in two.

“But did you hear the
way
he said it?”

“What way? Hey, where do we take showers?”

“In the farmhouse in the mornings,” Anna replied, then immediately returned to her favorite subject. “His voice was, like, so intense. He was feeling all these things he wasn’t saying, you could just tell.”

Despite her sleepiness, a little warning bell tinged somewhere inside Megan’s head. She slid a glance over to her friend as they walked. They were almost to the cabin. She could see its darker shadow against the trees. “Um . . . well, are you sure?” She kept her voice mild. “I wasn’t really getting that.”

“Yeah!” Anna said it as if talking to someone of limited intelligence. “Meg, you just don’t know anything about guys, that’s all. They never say how they
really
feel. You have to watch their body language.”

Inside the cabin, Anna switched on the battery-powered lamp while Megan pulled her towel out of the trunk, draping it over her shoulder and grabbing her toiletry bag. “Will you come with me to wash up? I don’t want to go out there alone.”

With the light from the cabin window overhead, the night seemed darker than before. The air smelled of damp grass and, as they stood over the outdoor sink, the moldery odor of wet wood.

“So, what do you think of Robert?” Anna asked. She turned on the water, which spurted and ran reddish for a second before going clear.

“He could not have been less interested in me or more interested in you. And he’s totally not my type.” Megan eyed the grayish soap on the end of the string and dug her soap case out of her bag. She gingerly splashed some water on her face. “This reminds me of camping.”

Anna ran her toothbrush under the faucet. “Remember when my dad took us up to Raven’s Gorge?”

Megan rubbed her fingers through the soap lather on her
face. “Yeah. What were we, like, eight? Remember we saw that skunk outside the bathroom?” She rinsed her face, then slurped a mouthful of water from her hands. She spit it out instantly. “It tastes like blood!”

“Iron and sulphur.” Anna wiped her mouth on her towel. “It’s springwater. You’ll get used to the taste.” She turned around and leaned back on the sink, crossing her arms while Megan brushed her teeth. “All those memories from when we were little—it seems like they happened to another person. Then Dad left and it was like I could really see the world for what it was. A place where you’re all alone.”

“But you still had me,” Megan reminded her around her toothbrush.

Anna’s mouth turned down, but she nodded.

“Yeah. I felt like you were the only person I could trust after that.”

Megan tried to read a hidden meaning in Anna’s words, but Anna just raised a finger to her mouth and chewed her nail absently. Megan gathered up her soap and bag, and the two went back inside the cabin. Megan’s body was aching for bed. Dumping her toiletries back in her trunk, Megan padded over to her cot and climbed in between the sheets. She’d pulled the covers up to her shoulders and turned on her side before she realized that Anna was still standing in the middle of the floor. The weak yellow light of the lamp threw her face into deep relief—her eye sockets like pits, her cheekbones like hills, shadows at the corners of her mouth.

“I saw the way you looked at Jordan tonight, Megan.”

Megan drew her breath in.

“You might as well face it, Megan,” Anna said quietly. “He’s in love with me. It’s obvious.”

Megan swallowed, which was audible in the utter quiet of the cabin. “That’s so awesome. I’m really happy for you.” If only she could believe it was true.

“You should be. You of all people should be.”

CHAPTER 4

Megan twisted the stiff shower knob and stuck her hand under the spray. Cold. She waited a minute. Still cold. Groaning silently, she put her towel down on the sink and turned the knob again, this time with both hands. She was rewarded with spluttering and then, gradually, warmer water.

Pulling back the crinkly shower curtain, Megan carefully stepped into the deep tub. It was one of those old-fashioned ones with feet, the kind you could practically swim in.

Megan tilted her face to the spray, letting the water wash off several layers of sweat and grit. She could hardly believe she’d woken up yesterday morning in her own bed. So many things had happened since then.

Last night had been particularly long—the wool blanket felt scratchy, and she’d kept swiping her feet against each other under the covers just to make sure there weren’t any little animals
hanging around under there. The racket of frogs and insects outside was deafening, and it went on
all night
. Whoever said country living was quiet had obviously never actually been out
in
the country.

Megan had slipped out of bed, head pounding, dying to rinse off her sticky skin, as soon as the sky began to lighten. On the other side of the room, Anna had slept with annoying soundness, lying on her back with her mouth open, hand relaxed on her chest. Megan had located her towel, which she’d left outside on the sink last night, so it was damp, and had picked her way down the muddy path to the house.

Now she shut off the water, toweled off, and pulled on clean jeans and a T-shirt. She wrapped her hair into a knot and stuck a long bobby pin in it before opening the bathroom door.

Dave and Sarah leaned on the counter, wearing faded flannel bathrobes and watching the coffeemaker as it burbled, filling the room with its nutty fragrance. Two blue mugs sat waiting. Their hands were touching in what felt like a private moment. Megan wondered if she should slip back into the bathroom.

But before she could, Sarah turned around. “Oh, hi! Morning. You sleep okay?” She smiled and Megan relaxed. Sarah didn’t look annoyed at the interruption.

Dave nodded hello and Sarah went on. “You’re on breakfast duty, right? Today, it’s eggs and toast and fruit. Everything’s in the fridge or on the counter. Just figure two to three eggs per person.”

She poured coffee for herself and Dave, and the two of them
wandered over to the table. Megan stood uncertainly in the doorway for another minute before she realized those were all the instructions she was going to get. This was going to be interesting. She was more of a cold cereal girl at home.

After some fumbling in various cupboards, Megan found a huge black frying pan and started cracking eggs into a blue bowl. She’d just reached twelve when the screen door opened and Anna came in, wearing yesterday’s cutoffs and one of Megan’s T-shirts, her face still puffy from sleep. She was followed closely by Robert and Isaac, both with hair that looked like it had been whisked. The boys collapsed at the table, immediately burying their heads in their arms, while Anna started sticking slices of bread in the toaster.

“I borrowed your toothbrush this morning, okay?” Anna said in between yawns.

“Where’s yours?” Megan scraped at the pan. The eggs were starting to stick. She glanced over at Sarah, hoping for some help, but Sarah was talking to Isaac.

“Don’t know. Maybe I dropped it last night. I had the craziest dream. We were all at this party in some basement and—” She stopped as Jordan entered the kitchen, looking only marginally more awake than the others. He was wearing a faded gray T-shirt and a pair of jeans with dirt embedded in the knees. The red-gold stubble on his chin and cheeks glinted in the sun streaming in through the windows.

Megan’s heart rate immediately increased. She was blushing for no reason and forced herself to look at the frying pan, hating
herself for reacting like this when all he’d done was walk into the room.

She scraped fiercely at the pan with the spatula. This batch was done. She dumped the eggs onto a plate and started a second batch.
Just ignore Jordan. Pay no attention. He’s just a guy, like the rest of them.
Except somewhere deep in her mind she knew he wasn’t. He was different.

Anna slid a plate in front of Jordan with two slices of hot buttered toast slathered with jam. Jordan looked down at the plate, then looked up and down the bare table. There was a little pause as everyone watched. No one else had any food.

“Um, thanks,” Jordan said. “Toast, anyone?” Then he turned to Robert. “You were snoring all night, bro. Isaac and I took turns poking you—do you remember that?”

Robert guffawed. “No, I always sleep like a horse. Nothing bothers me.”

Eat like a horse, Robert. The expression is “eat like a horse,” not sleep like one.
Megan suspected Robert might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, as her grandmother used to put it.

Megan stirred the eggs with the spatula, and a half-cooked chunk slopped out of the pan. She winced and grabbed a sponge from the sink.

Anna noticed, of course. “Eww, Megan,” she said. “Those can be yours.” Megan flushed at Anna’s loud tone and shot a glance toward Jordan, who wasn’t paying any attention. She focused on stirring as the familiar anger at Anna welled up, then subsided. Really, it wasn’t any different from how Anna always treated her.
Except that it seemed worse with everyone—okay, with Jordan—sitting right there.

Thomas tramped in near the end of the meal, carrying the scent of the outdoors with him. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and his hands were stained with grease. A large monkey wrench stuck out of his back pocket. “Hello, all,” he said in a cheery voice. He was obviously one of those people who loved mornings. But that was probably a requirement for all farmers.

Thomas bustled around the kitchen busily, fixing himself a cup of coffee. Then he pulled a list out of his pocket. Megan pushed her eyelids open wider. Farm work was great in theory, but the big breakfast had made her sleepy, and what she really wanted was to wander back to the cabin and take a postbreakfast nap.

Thomas leaned back against the counter and perused his list with relish. “So, this morning, we’re going to have Robert and Isaac feeding and watering Samson, throwing hay to the sheep, feeding the pigs and mucking the pigsty, and collecting eggs.” He looked at the boys. “You boys will have to take the hay to the sheep in the truck. You know how to drive a stick?”

Robert nodded.

“Megan, Anna, and Jordan will do the horse barn.”

“Okay,” Megan said. She glanced at Anna, who preened as if she herself had made the assignment.

“Feed, dump and scrub water buckets, strip the stalls, scrub, and put down fresh shavings,” Thomas told them. “Also, please groom both horses and the donkey. Check their feet, turn them out, and sweep the barn aisle and the feed room. Throw down
two flakes of hay to each horse, one for the donkey. This will take you up to lunchtime, if you’re doing it thoroughly.” He looked at his niece. “Anna will show you where everything is. She’s done the job a few times.”

“A few!” Anna rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “Try a hundred. You’re such a slave driver, Uncle Thomas.”

He laughed. “Dave and I will be out harrowing the oats most of the morning. I’ll come by to check on you all, see if you have any questions.” He waved at them as he headed back outside.

There was a general scraping and chattering as everyone pushed back their chairs and carried their dishes to the sink. “I’ve got dishes,” Sarah said.

“You guys want to walk over together?” Jordan asked.

Megan felt almost blinded by his gaze as he smiled at them. She tried to reply, but her throat was suddenly dry. She coughed. “Sure,” she managed.

“Great.” Once again, he met her eyes square on. Heat zinged through Megan’s belly. She cut her eyes away fast and turned to the table, stacking up random silverware, just to give her hands something to do. She prayed Anna hadn’t noticed the moment.

But her friend was beaming up at Jordan. “Of course we can walk together,” she simpered. She didn’t take his arm as they all clattered down the porch steps, but she might as well have.

The air outside smelled freshly scrubbed. As they passed the garden, the pumpkin vines and tomato stakes were silvered with moisture. A gentle mist lingered near the ground, hiding in the low places as if it were reluctant to leave, despite the steadily
brightening sun. Megan felt like she’d never really
seen
any of these things before, like she had super-vision now that she was on the farm and could notice things like the tiny balls of dew on the grass. She watched a finch hop up to a puddle and hesitate at the edge, like a tiny diver, before jumping in.

“Look!” Megan said before realizing that she was alone. The others had gone ahead—Robert and Isaac were just disappearing into the shed where the pickup was kept, and farther down the path, she could see Anna holding Jordan’s arm and chattering to him as they walked. Jordan’s shoulders were straight and broad, his back narrowing to his waist in a V. Megan forced her eyes away.
Anna’s boy. Anna’s boy. Anna’s boy.
What was
wrong
with her?