Wild Hearts (42 page)

In a place like this, a place filled with rich, elderly white people, he stands out, dazzling in a way that has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with…

I blink, realizing that while I've been staring, his lips have been moving.

“… was the sofa?” he asks, furrowing his brow as he walks around so that he can face me as I sit up.

“Oh, uh, no, the sofa's a little too heavy to use as a weapon. It was definitely the candlestick,” I say, and then jut my thumb in the direction of an antique brass candelabrum. “And Professor Plum. Because he's weird-looking and I don't trust him.”

One side of his mouth curls up as he reaches out to me.

I study him for a second before finally reaching out to accept his hand. It's warm and soft and strong, and he easily pulls me to my feet. And then I'm standing close to him. So close I can smell him.

Cinnamon. I breathe deeper, enjoying the warm spiciness of it. Yes, he smells like cinnamon. As I rake in another breath, I catch him staring.

Abruptly I step away, realizing I'm standing within inches of him, just breathing him in over and over like an idiot.

“Ahhh,” he says, once he has room to talk without speaking directly into my ear. “Because we're in the billiards room, of course.”

“Yeah,” I say, suddenly realizing how lame and outdated my joke is. Maybe if I didn't play board games with old people all the time…

To avoid looking at him, I dust off the seat of my pants and focus
really hard
on my apron.

Oh god. I'm wearing a doily apron in front of a hot boy. “I always pegged it on Mrs. Peacock,” he says.

“Oh?” I ask, wondering if there's a way to ditch the apron without looking like it's because of him. I glance around, but it's not like there's a phone booth where I can go from the bumbling Clark Kent to the ultra-suave Superman. I don't even have a pair of glasses to take off. “Why's that?”

“She's the only one not named after a color.”

I furrow my brow. “That's not true. Peacock is a color.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, crossing his arms. I'm suddenly, acutely aware of how built this boy is. He has serious muscles. Glorious, beautiful muscles, evident even through his stark white button-down and perfectly tailored black vest. He looks like he just left a wedding reception and lost his jacket somewhere.

“Yeah, it's a shade of blue. All the characters in Clue are colors,” I say, realizing in some corner of my mind that's still functioning that I should probably shut up about Clue.

“I'll have to take your word for it,” he says, flashing a cocky grin. He reaches out toward my face, and I freeze, half-expecting him to caress my cheek like something from a romance novel. But he doesn't. Instead he touches my hair, then pulls his hand away.

The way he looks at me, amusement glimmering in his eyes as he turns his hand and reveals a dust bunny, it's like he
knew
what he was doing. Like he knew I'd think he was reaching out for… some other reason. And I fell for it.

Sheesh, I am so totally deprived of flirting-with-a-cute-guy opportunities, living in a retirement home with my mom. I need to get out more. I need to get a hobby or something before I swoon at his feet and ask if he wants to play bridge.

He smirks. “Sorry, it was kind of clinging to your ponytail. It was distracting.”

“Well, I find your hair distracting too,” I say, and then immediately wish I had just kept my trap shut.

I find your hair distracting?
That was the best I could do?

“Really,” he says, his eyebrow quirking. I'm suddenly, acutely aware that his eyebrows are better groomed than mine. One of them, the right one, has two slashes through it, like he had it trimmed that way. Like he had them… sculpted to match the lines where his hair is buzzed shorter and little lines swoop and twirl on the sides of his head.

And I'm wearing an apron made of doilies.

“Yeah,” I say, my face warming. “Your haircut is, um, crooked.”

He smiles, that same amusement as earlier glittering in his eyes. “It's
supposed
to be crooked.”

My laughter sounds like a barking seal having seizures, and I can't believe he doesn't back away. Instead, his eyes light up, like my reaction surprises him.

“So you walked into the salon and said, ‘Hi, I'd like a crooked haircut?'” I cross my arms, realize I look confrontational, and drop them again. Why do my arms feel so big all of a sudden? It's like I forgot how to function. Like my limbs have become giant noodles attached to my body and I have no control of them.

He laughs, a surprisingly deep, smooth-as-honey laugh that makes my stomach do a flip. “I go to a barber,” he says, twisting his big silver watch in circles on his wrist. “And I let him do whatever he wants.”

“Brave,” I say, motioning with my hands in ridiculous wavy and jerky movements and
oh god what am I doing?

“He's been cutting my hair for eighteen years,” he replies, following my movement with his eyes, his lips twitching.

Oh great, he's picked up the fact that I live in Awkward City, USA. I've become entertainment.

And then his reply finally registers. Eighteen years. So he is at least eighteen years old. Probably nineteen. Although who knows, guys like him probably were born with sculpted hair and Armani suits, so he could still be just eighteen.

I swallow, breathing deeply and trying to calm my racing heart. “And did you like it?”

“Like what?”

“The crooked haircut,” I reply, twisting my fingers into the edges of my lace apron. Are my palms damp? Were they damp when he pulled me to my feet or is this a new development? What if I have the dampest palms in the entire world and he's just really good at hiding his disgust?

“I did until now,” he says, one side of his lips curling up as he meets my gaze, like an open challenge.

“Oh,” I say, embarrassment creeping in. “I mean, it's a good haircut. It, uh, looks good on you.”

“Right,” he says. “Clearly, you adore it.”

I blush harder now, my face so hot I'm sure he could feel it if he reached out and touched it. If he let his beautiful, long fingers slide across my cheek…

I clear my throat. “Um, I mean it. Crookedness and all.”

“Mm-hmm,” he says, still peering into my eyes as he smirks.

I'm suddenly, completely sure that no one has ever insulted his hair before. Or his looks. Or… him at all. So I basically freeze, staring right back at him, thinking that I've ruined any chance I had with him.

“I was voted best hair, you know,” he says after I don't speak.

“I can see why,” I say, then wish I hadn't. I want to know who voted him best hair. Other than me.

He laughs and it feels the tiniest bit like it's at me, before he turns away for the first time and studies the couch. With his side to me, I can see the way his button-down strains across his shoulders, the full bulk of his arms under the shiny fabric. Silk. Is it silk? I'm not as good at fashion as I am at art and furniture. Not
high
fashion, anyway. My expertise is limited to cotton and doilies.

“What are you trying to do with this?”

“Move it over there,” I say, pointing across the room, relieved to finally have something else to talk about.

“Why?”

“Because every time I walk by this room, it bugs me that it's set up entirely wrong. So I'm fixing it.”

“But if you stick it in the middle of the room, won't it kind of… I don't know, block things off? I mean this is one
giant
couch.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, look at this thing. It's pretty much a piece of art. If I position it correctly, it will provide flow,
and
people will actually notice it and appreciate the design. And over here,” I say, pointing to where I'd face-planted, “it blocks the window.”

“Provides flow, huh?”

I might have been self-conscious about my Clue references, but my interior-decorating skills—no matter how dorky they are—never actually embarrass me. I mean, if you ask Alex, she'll say it's totally mortifying, but whatever.

“There's an actual science to interior decorating. Just like there's a science to how restaurants lay out their menu to highlight the big-ticket items, and grocery stores position impulse buys.”

“I don't think I've ever met a teenage interior-decorating scientist,” he says, crossing his arms. “And I know some pretty impressive people.”

“Yeah? Like who?”

He shrugs. “Pop stars. Actresses. Inventors. The president's daughter.”

“Try not to brag or anything,” I say, rolling my eyes to pretend I'm unimpressed.

But really… who the heck is this boy? How does he know these people? And why would he bother talking to me when obviously he could go hang out with way cooler people? People who have full function of their arms, for instance.

“Hey, you asked,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking into a Cheshire grin.

Okay, the boy is smokin' hot and knows it. The part of me all wound up at his attractiveness unravels. I will not be intimidated by insanely good looks and a crappy personality.

I meet his eyes, annoyed. “So, fine, you know impressive people, and I'm not one of them. Maybe you think this is stupid, but it's kind of my thing. So if you're not going to help me, maybe you should just move on?”

“Huh,” he says, but not like I've annoyed him. More like… he's intrigued. Like maybe I won him over. “Malik.” He extends his hand. “And you are?”

“Lucy,” a voice calls out, just as I'm reaching for his hand. I swing around to find one of the residents, Henrietta, standing at the entryway, leaning against the doorjamb for support. My stomach sinks. Interlude With the Hot Boy is officially over. Henrietta is seventy-four and frail, and if she needs my help, it's more important.

“Sweetie, can you help me to my room?”

“Sure,” I say, pretending like it's totally no big deal that I'm going to spend the entire summer dateless and pathetic. I step away from Malik as he drops his hand back to his side. “See you around?” I give him an awkward little wave.
Dumb.
I should have shaken his hand instead, if only to feel his skin, hot against mine, one more time. Maybe that would be enough cute-boy contact to last me the two months until I head off to college.

I make it all the way to the door before he answers.

“Yeah, see you later, Lucy.”

I open my mouth to correct him just as Henrietta finds the crook of my elbow and leans against me. She always thinks I'm her granddaughter, Lucy, who was around my age when she died in a car wreck.

Once, I corrected her. Once, I told her the truth. But watching her eyes fill with tears as if hearing the news for the first time ensured I'll never do that again.

And I don't have the heart to do so now. To tell her my name isn't Lucy, that she has no family left at all, just a giant bank account and no one to leave it to.

And so I simply glance back at Malik one more time, searing his image in my head as I lead Henrietta back to her apartment.

By the time I return to the billiards room twenty minutes later, he's gone.

But the couch is sitting in the middle of the room, exactly where I wanted it.

Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Burkhart

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in the United States of America in May 2015

by Bloomsbury Children's Books

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burkhart, Jessica.

Wild hearts : an If only novel / by Jessica Burkhart.

pages cm

Summary: When residents of a small Wyoming town protest her developer father's plan to build a hotel on land used by mustangs for grazing, sixteen-year-old Brie, who enjoys the excitement of moving to a new place each year, finds herself falling for a young protester who rescues and rehabilitates mustangs.

ISBN 978-1-61963-259-2 (paperback) • ISBN 978-1-61963-258-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-61963-260-8 (e-book)

[1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Land use—Fiction. 3. Real estate development—Fiction. 4. Mustang—Fiction. 5. Horses—Fiction. 6. Love—Fiction. 7. Wyoming—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.B92287Wi 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014031989