Local Girl Swept Away (16 page)

“I know, but . . . I guess I'm not used to being the one people notice. That was Lorna—she was always out front. I followed her. I liked following her.”

His eyes bored into mine for a long moment. I wanted to look away, but that seemed even more awkward than holding his gaze. Finally he said, “You know, Jacqueline, Lorna didn't put you in second place. You put yourself there.”

My tears sprang up out of nowhere, unexpected. “I did?” I asked, blinking in embarrassment.

“Yup, you did.” His voice was like a caress. “Oh,
you
,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew I should have stayed far away from you.” His eyes softened as he leaned over and gently kissed me.
Finally
he kissed me! I felt like I'd been waiting for it forever. He tasted like apples and smelled like Earl Grey tea. I hoped I didn't taste like a salty, weepy baby.

“You probably don't believe you're beautiful either, do you?” he whispered in my ear. “Do you want me to convince you?”

“Yes,” I said, wishing I didn't sound like such a little girl.

But when Cooper kissed me again, deeply this time, I didn't feel like a child anymore. I felt like I was being rescued by the one person who could do it. I even felt I
deserved
to be rescued.

“Jacqueline,” he whispered and the name had half a dozen syllables, each of them stroking me like a cat's tongue.

In seconds he'd managed to split my brain in half. Cradling my head, he laid me down on the blanketed couch. He kissed my neck as he unzipped my jacket. As his hands slid underneath my T-shirt, my brain shut down and I was all body, all sensation. Tentacles of joy spread out from every spot Cooper touched and radiated through my whole body. Now I understood it. This was what love felt like: an unbelievable thrill that spread from nerve to nerve until you were, finally, entirely alive.

Cooper lowered his body onto mine, my shield against the world. My back arched to meet him. And then his hand slipped beneath the waistband of my jeans, touching bare skin, sparking wave after wave of excitement.

But as quickly as it began, it was over. His hands stopped moving, his body became as still as stone. He groaned and pushed up onto his knees, then propelled himself to the other end of the couch.

“God, I'm so sorry,” he said, his electric fingers pushing the hair out of his eyes. “I didn't mean to take it that far. I just . . . once I kissed you . . . it was hard to stop.”

For a minute I was too shocked to respond. It had been so beautiful. Was it really over?

“No,” I said finally. “I wanted you to do that.”

“Jacqueline, how old are you? Eighteen?”

I pulled myself into a sitting position and straightened my clothes. “Well, not quite.”

He groaned again. “I'm
terrible
. We have to forget this ever happened. It can't happen again.”

I could feel the delight flowing out of my body like dirty water down the bathtub drain. “I don't want to forget it!”

“I don't know what I was thinking. You make me a little bit crazy, Jacqueline,” he said, leaning forward and petting my hair. “But the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“You aren't hurting me,” I said, my breathing still fast and rough. I wanted to say more, to tell him what he'd made me feel, but I didn't know how to say it, I didn't know what words to use, and I didn't have the nerve.

“Sssh.” He scooted close to me and held me against his chest, rocking me back and forth until I was lulled into a desperate happiness.

“It's getting late,” he said finally. “Look how low the sun is.”

We untangled ourselves and stood up, but I felt awkward now. I'd been lying in a dark cabin making out with a thirty-year-old man whom I wanted to fall in love with, if he would only let me. I'd never been in a situation like this before. What should I say?

“I won't tell anyone,” I said.

He smiled his softest smile. “No one would believe you anyway. A catch like you with an old guy like me.”

“That's not true!”

“Jacqueline, you should go home,” he said, a little sadly.

“Okay.” In order to postpone walking out the door for one more minute, I grabbed the blanket off the couch and folded it up. Cooper opened the outside door wide to let in the last, horizontal streak of sunlight. I was shoving the blanket onto a shelf in the closet when a sharp beam of light cut across the space and lit up a piece of cloth stuffed into a back corner. It glowed in the sunset. I reached in behind dusty linens to pull it out, but I already knew what it was.

Lorna's white jacket.

I showed the jacket to Lucas and Charlotte the next morning as we stood in front of my house waiting for Finn to pick us up. They were stunned into silence and had barely begun to babble their questions when Finn pulled up and rolled down his window.

“I see the whole entourage is coming,” he said, glaring at Lucas.

“They want to help out.” I stuffed the jacket into my backpack for the moment.

Charlotte gave Finn a nervous smile, but Lucas kept his eyes on his Bigfoot boots.

“Charlotte can come.
He
can walk.”

The bombshells of the day before—from the promise of the show at the Center, to my emotional session with Cooper in Cabin 5, to the shock of finding Lorna's coat stuffed in the closet—seemed to have blown away the cautiousness I'd felt around Finn for months. “Don't be a dumb-ass,” I told him. “You can't be mad at Lucas forever.”

He looked surprised by my bluntness, but he didn't back down. “Sure I can.”

Lucas bent over to look in the window. “Look, man, I'll apologize as many times as I have to. I'm sorry I slept with her. I'm sorry I left without telling you. I'm sorry about everything. I mean that. Isn't there some way we can put it behind us?”

“Not that I can think of,” Finn said. He looked like he was barely containing himself from leaping out of the car and pounding Lucas. “Jackie, why are you hanging out with this asshole when you know what he did?”

“He's not an asshole, Finn. He's our friend. I forgave him.”

“Well, I guess he didn't sleep with your girlfriend, did he?”

“Oh, for God's sake, he screwed up!” I yelled. “Haven't you ever screwed up, Finn? Lucas has been miserable for months. Isn't that enough punishment? Besides, we have more important things to think about now.” I opened the front passenger door and crawled in with my portfolio and backpack.

“Nothing is ‘more important' to me.” His voice was knife sharp.

“Not even this?” I pulled out the crumpled white jacket with the embroidered black diamonds on the collar and cuffs. “Don't even consider telling me this isn't Lorna's jacket.”

Speechless, Finn reached out to touch the grimy, stained coat. Lucas and Charlotte got in the backseat quietly, without further invitation.

“It can't be,” he said, as he took the coat out of my hands. He buried his face in it and breathed in the mildew. “Where did you get this?”

“It was hidden in a closet in Cabin 5 at Dugan's.”

“At
Dugan's
? What were you doing
there
?”

I felt my face heat up. “What difference does that make? The important thing is I found it.”

“But she was
wearing
it . . .” Finn said.

“I know! I mean, I
don't
know. Why do you think it was in the cottage?”

Charlotte leaned forward. “All the reports in the paper mentioned the white jacket,” she said. “If somebody found it right away, wouldn't they have turned it in to the police?”

“Maybe somebody found it over the summer,” Lucas said. “A tourist who was staying at Dugan's. Somebody who didn't know what happened.”

“But why would they stuff it in the corner of the closet?” I asked. “Besides, it's all moldy. It's been in there a while.”

“I can't believe it was in Cabin 5,” Finn said. “It's too freaking weird. That was
our
cabin.”

“So you believe me?” I asked Finn.

“Well, I believe it's her jacket,” he said, “but I don't know what else to believe.”

Lucas sat forward and spoke to the back of Finn's neck. “I just want to remind you that you said it was ‘our cabin.' That includes me, and always will.”

“But, sadly, not me,” Charlotte said.

Ouch. Charlotte carried a hidden knife too. “See,” I said to Finn. “I screwed up too. I was a lousy friend to Charlotte, but she forgave me and now we're friends again.”

“Charlotte, did Jackie sleep with your boyfriend?” Finn asked.

“Well, I didn't have a boyfriend in the fourth grade.”

“Why is
that
the only unpardonable crime?” I said. “For God's sake, Finn, there are other ways to be shitty to your friends.”

Finn chewed his lip. Nobody said a word. Finally I looked at my watch. “It's almost ten o'clock. Elsie and Cooper are waiting for us. We'll talk about the jacket later.”

“I can't even think about anything else now,” Lucas said.

Finn turned around and glared at his old friend. “You're still in my car.”

I sighed. “He's still in your
life
, Finn. Get over it.”

• • •

Elsie was thrilled to see more willing workers arrive. “With this many people, we should be able to get the painting done by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. I'll book the guy to refinish the floors on Wednesday, and they'll be dry enough for us to start hanging pictures Friday afternoon.”

Before she started the Spackling demonstration, Elsie sent me off to look for Cooper. “He's in the print shop. You two can decide what to mat.”

I grabbed my portfolio, glad to escape the tense atmosphere in the gallery. Finn was snorting and stomping around like a bull waiting for the rodeo to start, and Lucas was mostly trying to stay out of his way. Of course, I was nervous about seeing Cooper, after yesterday. Were we more than friends now? Were we something other than friends? Were we in some kind of a relationship now, or was I an idiot to think that could happen? Maybe I was blowing the whole thing totally out of proportion. I had no idea, but I knew I wasn't ever going to forget what it felt like to be kissed by Cooper Thorne.

As I approached the print shop, I heard a high-pitched giggle coming from inside. My hand froze on the doorknob and my stomach flipped over. Someone was in there with Cooper. Had the new Fellows arrived already? My imagination conjured up a petite beauty, someone just Cooper's age, with whom he had everything in common.

The giggle burst into a wholehearted laugh. Whoever Cooper was with was certainly enjoying herself. I started to feel ridiculous standing outside eavesdropping, so I grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door open before I could have second thoughts.

Cooper was sitting on a high stool and grinned at my entrance. But Tess, standing beside him, was surprised by the interruption and jumped a little, her laughter cut short. “Oh, Jackie, it's you. God, you scared me,” she said, pulling at the raggedy hems of her very short jean shorts.

Immediately I understood what was going on. Tess was flirting with Cooper, and it was kind of adorable. Ever since she'd turned thirteen, all she could talk about was how she wanted a boyfriend, and she was obviously dressed for the hunt today. I could just imagine the argument she'd had with Elsie this morning before she got out of the house wearing those shorts.

“Sorry, Tessie. I didn't know you were down here. Aren't you chilly?” I asked, nodding to her long, bare legs.

She formed her mouth into a pretty pout and shrugged. “A little. It's supposed to warm up later.”

“Ah, youth,” Cooper said. “She doesn't even feel the cold, do you, Tiddlywink?”

Tess glowered at the use of the nickname her mother had foisted on her years before. “Don't call me that. I hate that name.”

Cooper pacified her with his usual radiant smile. “Listen, kiddo, Jacqueline and I have work to do this morning.”

She looked confused. “You and
who
?”

I laughed. “He means me. Are you going to help paint the gallery?”

“Who's there besides my mother and brother?”

“My friend Charlotte came. And Lucas.”

Tess's eyes widened and she seemed more childlike again. “Ooh, Lucas is here? Finn's so mad at him, and he won't tell me why. This should be good.” She banged out the print shop door, eager to see fireworks.

“Hey, you,” Cooper said. “How are you doing today?”

“Okay, I guess.” I fiddled with a strand of hair and then pushed it behind my ear. If only Cooper had been my age, I'd have known how to handle the situation. Or even if I didn't know exactly, it would be okay, because I'd know that something good was beginning and I could just wait for it to sort itself out. But he wasn't my age. He was a thirty-year-old novelist, an
enfant terrible
, as Carolyn Winter had said. In comparison, I was . . . well, more like a plain old infant.

When Cooper walked me home last night, I was more or less hysterical over finding Lorna's jacket, and he kept his arm around my waist, comforting me without making too big a deal of it. Outside my front door, he didn't even kiss my cheek. Would he never kiss me again? Or was he just afraid my parents might see? Or maybe he'd decided I was just too immature to be kissed. How was I supposed to know? I
was
immature.

“So, let's get to work, huh?” I hoisted my portfolio up onto one of the big tables. We had a job to do—I could stick with that for now. “I brought everything. I couldn't decide.”

He stood beside me as I opened the cardboard folder. He was as close as he could be without actually touching me, and I could feel the hair on my arm stand up as if it were reaching out for him.