One Week (Stolen Kiss #0.5) (3 page)

4 wheels on a rusty truck
2 gray eyes
1 secret that could ruin everything…

All Hannah wanted was a summer break from being “perfect Hannah Cohen” and a chance to forget about the devastating family secret that could ruin her seemingly perfect life. So when she takes off for her eccentric aunt’s house in the mountains of North Carolina and everyone makes one big (wrong) assumption about her past, Hannah figures that it’s easier to live a lie than have to face the truth.

She never expected to make any real friends, like the hilarious and spontaneous Kate and Ashton, who drag her to late night bonfires and ice cream marathons. And she especially never counted on meeting Jude Westmore, the brooding bad boy next door with gray eyes and permanent oil smudges on his fingers, or that he would ever take an interest in her.

Between moonlit movie nights in the bed of Jude’s truck and nearly romantic Ferris Wheel rides, Hannah’s old life seems further away then ever, but can she keep her secret, or is the truth worth the risk of losing everything, including Jude?

M
y mother was imagining things again.

“I swear, Hannah, this vacation will be just the thing we both need,” her voice trilled through the sleek black phone resting in its cradle on my dashboard. “A summer away from everything. Two months of relaxation and freedom!”

The sound of a car horn blared through the speakerphone. Knowing my mother, she was likely paying more attention to the radio or her makeup, anything other than the highway on which she was driving. I gritted my teeth as I glanced in the side mirror and then over my shoulder, searching for an opening in the lane next to me. Still no luck.

“I can’t wait to stretch out and do nothing this summer,” Mom went on.

I bit my tongue to keep from asking how that would be any different than our normal lives back in Willowbrook. Mom was on her way to the airport, where she would fly to New York and from there take a second flight across the Atlantic to Paris, where she would spend the summer away from home, away from me, away from . . . well, everything.

The original plan called for me to join my mom in France. She had made all the arrangements without even asking my opinion. But Mom and I could not exist within the same continent for an entire summer without one of us going insane.

Most likely, me.

So now Mom was going with her current best friend, a woman she knew from tennis lessons at the country club. Her name was Tandy or Missy or maybe something else entirely. I hadn’t really paid much attention.

I, on the other hand, was stuck on Interstate 40 West in the North Carolina mountains behind a big, rumbling truck. Which happened to be full of hogs.

Hogs that
stunk
. The smell had filled my car, making my eyes water. With my windows up, I turned the air conditioner off to keep from sucking in more of the stench from outside, but since it was late June in North Carolina, the sun shining through my windshield made the car feel like a roasting pan. Rolling down the windows only made the hog smell worse. Lush green mountains stretched out on each side of the road all around me, but the idyllic countryside did nothing to relax me, not with the smell hanging in the air and my mom’s piercing laughter crackling through the phone.

I searched for exit 53B, trying not to breathe too deeply, sweating in my own sauna on wheels while my mother prattled on.

“Tess and I are planning to gorge ourselves on crepes and pastries. Isn’t that right, Tess?”

Tess, right, that was her friend’s name. At least I was close.

“
Oui!
” I heard a shrill voice in the background proclaim. My mother’s overdone laughter filled my car.

Ahead of me, a hog stuck its nose through one of the little holes cut into the back of the trailer.

“Are you sure it’s exit 53B?” I asked, yelling to be heard over Mom’s laughter.

“Of course, dear,” Mom sighed. It was probably a huge inconvenience for her to make sure her only daughter actually made it to her sister’s house and not some random stranger’s front door. My friend Natalie Spinelli had told me before I left that she’d heard mountain people were always high on meth and drunk on moonshine. I glanced out the driver’s side window just in time to see a carload of men who looked like extras from the cast of
Duck Dynasty
speed by.

“I wrote all the directions down that Lydia gave me,” Mom said. “I remember precisely. Exit 53B onto I-240 West . . . ”

I tried to focus on Mom’s directions, but my mind kept wandering. I hadn’t seen my aunt Lydia in four years, not since she moved away from Willowbrook to the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina. Aunt Lydia had sent us invitations to visit her every now and then, but Mom had always had an excuse for not going.

But with Mom going to Paris this summer, it seemed like a good opportunity for me to spend some time with my aunt. Besides, I needed to get out of Willowbrook for a while. A long while.

“Have you heard from Daddy today?” I asked, my voice breaking a little.

There was static on the phone and then I heard Mom clear her throat. I had taken her by surprise, and the one thing Marilyn Cohen did not like was to be caught off guard.

Rule #12: Never let yourself be surprised. Always have the upper hand.

“I spoke with him right before I called you,” Mom said, her voice tight and too high-pitched. “He told me about the people he’s getting to know at the resort. He’s having a great time.”

Resort.
Mom always referred to it as “the resort.” As if Keller-Burns Rehabilitation Center was just a spa getaway. Rule #8: If reality wasn’t the way you wanted it to be, create your own.

“We’re pulling up to the airport now,” Mom said. “I have to go.”

My jaw ached from how hard I clenched my teeth together. “Fine. Call me when you land.”

“I will,” Mom said. “Behave yourself, Hannah. Kisses!”

“I love—”

The line went dead.

I frowned at the hogs in the truck ahead of me. “Be glad you don’t have to deal with your mothers,” I told them. Exit 53B finally came into sight and I veered off the interstate onto another one that sloped down into a green valley between the rolling, tree-covered mountains. In the distance, hazy blue peaks blended into the bright blue sky.

I rolled down the windows and took a deep breath of fresh air. If Mom could live in her fantasy world this summer, maybe I could too.

#

“I want you to not be Hannah Cohen this summer.”

I smirked at my life coach Mark Cavallo. It was our last session before the summer and I had already told him about my decision not to go to Paris with Mom and instead head to Asheville to stay with Aunt Lydia.

“Sure,” I said dryly. “Who should I be then?”

Mark pushed the loosely rolled sleeves of his white button-up shirt farther up his arms. “Be yourself, but be the you that you
could
be, not the you that everyone else wants you to be.” He leaned forward in his blue chair, his elbows propped on his knees. One shoelace on his brown loafers was about to come untied, but it didn’t seem to bother him. “You rely too much on your rules, Hannah. You’ve let these rules control everything you do in your life.”

I shifted on the plush green couch, avoiding Mark’s gaze. “It’s hard to fight against seventeen years of what my parents have drilled into my head.”

“Your parents are your parents, not you.” Mark rolled his chair across the brown carpet until he was back in my line of sight. He never let me get away with not making eye contact. “You have to step outside of your parents’ shadows and do your own thing. Take this summer as a test drive. Forget the rules and do what
you
want to do.”

A chill tickled its way up my spine under the red and white striped T-shirt I wore. The idea of not following the rules filled me with a cold panic. How would I know what to do? How would I keep from accidentally humiliating myself or my parents?

“This is
your
life, Hannah,” Mark said gently. His brown eyes looked honest and confident as he continued, “What you make of it is up to you. You can hold yourself back forever and keep ending up here in my office when you can’t handle the pressure. Or you can be who you want to be and live a happier life.”

“What if I don’t know who I want to be?” I asked.

The thing I liked best about Mark was that he never laughed at my stupid questions, the ones I could never voice in front of Natalie or my other friends from school. In their eyes, I was Hannah Cohen, the girl who had everything and could do anything.

“Then you figure it out,” Mark said. “Push yourself outside your limits and try everything.” After a moment, he added, “Within reason. I don’t want your parents to blame me when they have to bail you out of jail.”

I smiled back weakly, as if the idea of reinventing myself and pushing the limits wasn’t completely crazy.

If Mark really thought I was ready to handle life without the rules, maybe he was the one who needed counseling.

#

I was lost.

I tried to follow Mom’s directions, but I couldn’t remember if it was a right or a left after getting onto Mangrove Park Street. I had taken a right and then a left and then another right. And now nothing looked like anything my aunt would live in.

Back in Willowbrook, Aunt Lydia had lived in a beautifully restored Victorian home, the kind that looked like it had sprung from a storybook. Years ago, Aunt Lydia and I used to pretend we were Victorian girls in beautiful dresses, dressing up in the old clothes she kept in the attic when I spent the night with her.

I had always imagined that Aunt Lydia had relocated her old house from Willowbrook and plopped it down in the mountains. But the tiny brick homes I drove by were far removed from the restored Victorian in my memory. Everything was so green and lush, the trees gathered together in tight clusters around the homes. Wildflowers swayed in the breeze back and forth along each side of the road. The houses rose on the sloped land around me as the road dipped down and then back up again in the distance.

Thunk.

Thunk thunk thunk.

What was that?

I drove a few feet more, but the thunking only grew louder, and I felt the weight of the car shift as it dipped down on one side.

I pulled over to the side of the road, flipping the switch for my hazard lights. Then I opened the driver side door and leaned out.

“Great,” I muttered. “Just freaking great.” The front left tire was completely flat and the rubber hung loosely on the wheel. I grabbed my phone. I had the number to roadside assistance programmed into my contacts for emergencies.

But when I looked at my phone, I saw there was no signal. Not even one bar.

Perfect. I wanted to pound on the steering wheel and let out a cry of frustration, but as usual, my mother’s words echoed in my head.

It’s all about image
, Hannah, the wise Marilyn Cohen always said.
If you look as if you have it all together, you will have it all together. Never lose control. Maintain the image of perfection. That’s Rule #1, the most important.

So I sat in the driver’s seat, my hands gripping the steering wheel as I tried to maintain perfection.

The problem was, I had never changed my own tire before.

But it was okay. I could handle this.

I got out of the car and walked to the trunk, popping it open to inspect the spare tire. It was still there, securely latched in the little molded well under the carpet.

Okay, so I needed tools.

I found a black pouch tucked into the side of the trunk and opened it to find what looked like a crowbar, another metal rod, and a folded metal square thing.

I could
not
handle this.

Gravel crunched on the asphalt as an old pickup truck slowed to a stop behind my car. It was painted a dull gray primer color with white splotches randomly placed across the hood. I could see a guy in the driver’s seat, but the glare of the sun on the window made it impossible to make out a face.

Girl alone on a backwoods road with a flat tire. Guy in a creaky old pickup truck stops to help. Why did this sound like the start of a horror movie?

I quickly slipped back into the driver’s seat and shut the door. I watched in the rearview mirror as the guy got out of the truck and started walking toward my car. He was tall and lean, dressed in faded jeans and a white T-shirt. Brown hair hung around his shoulders.

This was definitely a horror movie in the making. I discreetly hit the lock button on my door and then squeezed my fists until my nails dug into my palms.

I jumped at the tap on the window next to my head. The guy leaned down to look in at me, his wide gray eyes studying me. He looked young, probably around my age. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen at the most.

“Need some help?” he called through the window.

Rule #4: Never ask for help.

I shook my head. “No, thank you. Someone will be along any minute, I’m sure.”

He looked around the quiet, empty street. “I guess I’m someone. You got a spare tire?”

“You don’t have to do that,” I called to him. “Really. I’ll call roadside assistance.” I fumbled for my phone. He didn’t know that I couldn’t get a signal.

Unfortunately, I managed to knock the phone into the tiny crevice between the console and the passenger seat.

“It’ll only take a minute,” the guy said. “No need to call for help.”

Before I could stop him, he walked to the back of my car and disappeared behind the open trunk door. I could hear him rattling around and the car shook back and forth. After a moment, he pulled the spare tire out and rolled it over to the front of the car.

“I’ll need you to get out while I jack the car up,” the guy called.

Get out? Of the car?
I stared at him for a long moment, but he made no movement to leave. I crawled over the console and climbed out of the passenger side, keeping the car as a barrier between us.

Stranger guy didn’t comment on my weird behavior. I watched as he worked, taking in how the sun shone a glowing halo on the top of his hair and how his shirtsleeves rode up as he moved, revealing nicely muscled arms and the black edges of a tattoo.

My mother’s voice sang out in my head again,
Tattoos are for bikers and prostitutes, Hannah.

After a few moments, the guy eased my car back down, removed the jack, and then rolled the flat tire to the trunk. He shut the trunk door and returned to the front of the car, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“You ran over something big,” he said. “Not sure what it was, maybe a piece of metal in the road.”

I stared stupidly at him for a moment, before I was able to croak out, “Okay.”

The guy nodded to me and then straightened, turning around and walking toward his truck, like that was it. Like he hadn’t just done me a huge favor.

“Wait,” I said as I hurried after him. He stopped and I skidded to a halt a safe distance from him.

“Thank you,” I said.

He nodded again. “No problem.” He started walking toward his truck, reaching for the handle.

People didn’t just do things for other people without getting something in return. My dad had always taught me to never be indebted to someone. Rule #21: Even the score as soon as possible.