Love Me Crazy (22 page)

“Where to?” I ask her.

She climbs into my car and frowns. “Can’t believe I let you convince me to get rid of my rental.”

I lean over and guide her pouty lips toward mine. “You don’t need a car. You have me.”

She scoffs and scrunches her nose in disagreement. “I haven’t
had
you today.” She pushes me away and slides the seat belt across her lap. “Makes my car the more reliable choice, doesn’t it?”

“That piece of crap isn’t reliable. It’s a death trap.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She thumbs through the binder studies the page labeled with today’s date. “Fantastic! I’m done for the day. Unless I get a call for something major, like ordering matching toilet paper and towelettes for the portable potties.”

“Then I’ll usurp your time until then. Have you had a chance to walk around the square?” She shakes her head.

“Then, Ms. Beck, as your tour guide, let me welcome you to our charming town of Lucas Hill, one of several stomping grounds for the infamous Ms. Elizabeth Lucas, also more familiarly known as, Eliza Pinckney, the first to successfully grow indigo into a thriving business in South Carolina.”

“Are you serious? I didn’t know that.”

“I doubt she ever dyed herself as blue as you did.”

She
grunts then hops out of the car and it’s like she sees the town in a different light. A blue one, maybe?

We walk around town and I point out the Pinckney statue, the oldest working cinema in the state, and the fountain that no longer works because my sisters and I accidentally clogged the intake with chunks of indigo when we thought we were doing the town a favor by dyeing the water.

Cassie says hello to the people she’s met. They hug her like they’ve known her forever. Their reception of me is a bit more standoffish. I guess that’s understandable considering I deserted my family and my town.

We cross through the square and walk toward the water tower. The sun reflects off the rusted metal and Cassie shields her eyes until we turn up the next street.

“Your little town is busy today,” she says.

“Lucas Hill’s Memorial Day.”

“Really?” She turns in a circle on the sidewalk. “Oh! I see it now.”

I follow her line of sight. Commemorative flags for the fallen line the sidewalks, hang in the windows, and fly as pennants from each iron lamppost. “There’s a parade up to the cemetery and then everyone releases magnolias into the pond behind it.”

“Can we?” Her eyes dart up the magnolia-lined hill toward the gathering crowds.

“Of course.” I grab her hand. She tugs once but relaxes and wraps her hand around my arm. I kiss her temple as we walk up the hill.

I’d seen this parade every year growing up. Dad would line my sisters in matching indigo blue dresses along the sidewalk and mom would pin a palmetto tree and crescent to their chests. We’d wave flags, sing with the band, and circle the plots with the other townies before the firing.
Seventeen
gunshots for seventeen buried soldiers raised in Lucas Hill. One was another John Quincy Covington.

Cassie tugs my arm. “Hey space cowboy, where did you go?”

“Dad would bring us. Just remembering.”

“Where would you guys stand?” She weaves through the crowds lining the sidewalks, pulling me along like my dad would.

“At the top, right by the gate.”

When we reach the gates she points at the only free spot left. “Here?”

I smile. God, she’s perfect. Doesn’t even know what this means to me. I fend off the memories surfacing to make room for this new one. Cassie and me holding on to the Covington tradition. Dad would’ve loved her.

One by one, others fill in the gaps along the road but the space next to us remains empty. Coveted turf typically. I glance at the crowd and their staring eyes and hidden whispers. Has my return tainted my family that much? Is it my ink? Do I scare the townies? How is that possible when over half probably wiped my ass as a baby?

Music grows louder as the band and local veterans make the final turn to climb Magnolia Hill.

“Oh, wow.” Cassie covers her lips with her fingers.

I peer over her head to see what excited her. My sisters lead the parade wearing identical blue dresses. My heart stops as I step into the street. On each of their chests is their palmetto crescent pin. They hand out state flags to kids and anyone who doesn’t have one. Kat sees me first and stops in her tracks. Her eyes widen, her face pales, and then suddenly she’s smiling.

“Go to them,” Cassie urges me forward.

I
walk down the road and Kat wraps her arms around me. It’s the first bit of kindness she’s shown since my return. Ellie follows suit, hugging me as we walk the short distance to the top.

Kat hands Cassie a flag and pins a palmetto to her dress. “Rid you of that accent and we’ll have a crossover.”

Cassie smiles and Kat grabs her hand and pulls me to her other side. Together, we line the streets like Dad would have us do. A lead weight lifts off me and Cassie has every bit to do with it.

I mouth, “Thank you.”

She smiles in return.

While the band and the reenactment team settle into their ceremony spots, Cassie steps into the road to take a picture. My sisters beg her to join and I can’t stop staring at the redheaded star surrounded by Covington blue. She leans up and kisses me on the cheek and hugs me so tight I couldn’t care less if I ever breathed again.

After the parade we release flowers and head to town to eat an early dinner with my sisters. They’re openly nicer and it feels good to joke with them. Mom shows up toward the end with Annabeth and pulls up a chair. She squeezes Annabeth’s shoulders until she drops into the seat.

“Cassidy, may I borrow you a moment. I’d like to get everything on the calendar for the week since wedding functions are picking up.”

“Absolutely.” Cassie gives her a huge, fake smile, then follows her to an empty table.

Kat crosses her arms and stares at Annabeth. “Did you invite yourself or did Momma ask you to come?”

“
What ever are you talking about, Katherine?” Annabeth presses her fingertips against her chest.

“Don’t call me that, you know I hate it.” Kat rolls her eyes and turns in her seat to watch Mom and Cassie.

“I ran into your mother outside. She said she was meeting y’all here and invited me. I didn’t realize this was just family . . . or almost. I see the wedding girl is here.”

I cock an eyebrow and round on Annabeth. “Yes, you do. Cassie is with me.”

“Oh? Cassidy is now Cassie? So . . . sweet.”

“Has Cass found a dress to match your tux yet, Quinn?” Kat spins in her seat, ready to cause mischief like when we were younger.

“Your . . . tux?” Annabeth’s eyebrows knit together. The perfectly plucked lines angle into a disjointed vee.

“Ellie insisted Cassidy come as a guest, so she’s Quinn’s date.” Kat claps like a sea lion and I want to smack her upside the head for starting shit. I don’t need Annabeth grilling me on one side and Mom badgering me on the other. “I think there’s something raw and primal between them. The other night Cass—”

“Kat, shut up.” What the fuck? Raw? We aren’t raw or primal or whatever shit she was about to say.

“Why? You disagree?”

I jump to my feet and throw down some bills for food before Kat pokes the fire burning in Annabeth. “Cassie and I are trying things out. I like her a lot.” I shrug. Why am I making excuses to her? She’s in the past. “See y’all later.”

I tell everyone good-bye and drag Cassie out of the restaurant.

“
What was that?” She hops in the truck. “Don’t do that in front of your mom. She’ll fire me.”

“She’s not going to fire you.”

“She’ll fail me.”

I shake my head. “Just come on. I have a surprise planned and we’re going to be late.”

“A surprise?” Her eyes light up and my mom issues disappear. If that’s all it takes, I’ll surprise her every day.

Chapter
19

Cassidy

“You’re going too fast.” I scramble down the muddy embankment.

Quinn quickens his pace and it takes me three steps to keep up with his stride. He pushes a gate open. “We’re losing light, come on.”

I peer around him. Splintered planks with slimy moss reaching over the edges like corpse fingers lead into the dark. A shudder runs through me. I pull my elbows in to wrap my hands around my arms. “No way. We’ll get lost. Or killed. Or eaten.”

He laughs. “You’ll appreciate the dark once we get to the end.”

“I appreciate light, too.” I step onto the first plank. “Like flashlights.” The chains linking the boards together rattle and I pull back. “Or lanterns. Are you sure about this?”

“Trust me, you’ll love Fire Swamp.” He steps over the first board and the sway sets me on edge. Definitely can’t step on the same board as him; we’d fall right through.

Hands linked and a death grip on his wrist, I tiptoe behind him, fully aware my spiked heels could be my ruin. Falling into the swamp isn’t on my agenda. “You could’ve let me change.”

“No way. I want to see you wearing nothing but those shoes.”

My ears perk up at that. So do my nipples. Suddenly, I’m very aware of how he’s able to take me from the studious teacher’s pet to the rebel rouser in the back of the room, ready to cause as many problems as possible. . . as long as those problems include us naked. And it sounds like it does.

The
moon’s glow reflects off the water and stretches around the cypress trees. As we move deeper into the marsh, the trees become wider, older, and scarier. The perfect hiding spot for a rabid alligator or a vicious, I don’t know . . . weasel. Opossum. Snake. Something to be waiting.

An owl hoots in the distance. Something claps like bird wings, sending a clammy gust brushing against my cheek. Please don’t be bats. I scrunch down, pressing my forehead against Quinn’s back. What in the hell are we doing?

The humidity trapped under the limbs weighs down everything, locking in the odor of decay from fallen trees and swampy things I’d rather replace with a mirage of warm sand and piña coladas. Just as I’m ready to suggest turning around, because I can’t see a damn thing and I value my life, the boardwalk stops. Quinn undoes a chain wrapped around a gate.

Light filters through the break in the overhead canopy, defining the dock’s edges. I move to the center, captive on the floating prison. Unlike the rickety old walkway, these boards squeeze together solid as concrete. At the far end there’s a glimmer, corrugated metal, maybe.

“What is that?”

“My dad and I built this place for my sisters.” He unlocks the door to the roofed structure.

“Is this the dock alligators learned to climb?” I huddle next to him, searching for anything log-like that might be an acrobatic alligator.

“Did Kat tell you that?”

“She said alligators like eating dogs and kids and could run a swamp mile faster than an emu.” I huddle closer to him. “She said those same alligators were in
this
swamp.”

“
Kat’s overly dramatic at the worst possible times.” He rubs my arm and pulls me in for a bear hug.

“Still,” I say. “Alligators?”

“And piranha and rabid wolves and girl-eating slugs.”

I whack him on the chest. “Stop bullshitting me.”

“Exactly my point.”

I laugh and he dances me in a circle.

“I love when you laugh. Your entire face lights up, not that I can see it out here.”

I point at the door he’d unlocked. “Are we going in? Is it safer than standing out here like bait?”

He walks me to the center. “In a sec.” He cranes his head back and looks at the break in the canopy. “Moon’s almost gone.”

“Then it will be pitch-black.”

“And the boogeymen come out to play.”

I wrap my arm around his waist and straddle his foot. “Not. Funny.”

“We’re safe, I promise.”

Cicadas vibrate the air like jets in a flyby. Frogs, with their high-pitch calls, echo around us. I close my eyes, allowing the drone to replace my interior noises and sedate my jumpy nerves.

“There.” Quinn squeezes my shoulder.

I open my eyes. What am I looking— Oh! Twinkling, pale golden bursts like exploding stars bring the swamp to life. Above me, in front of me, right at the water’s surface. Fireflies dance in the darkness, keeping their own flashing beat, casting a humbling glow over everything.

“
There are so many.” I move toward the edge, closer to the water.

The mirrored surface reflects the bursts, doubling the pow factor, which brings a smile to my face. I shake my head in awe. “Fire Swamp.”

“The one and only.”

“How many girls have you brought down here, Mr. Sly Covington?”

“You’re the first.”

“Whatever.” He’s sugarcoated perfection. Besides the fact he could get anyone he wants on his own, I’m sure Ellie had friends over and at least one lucky girl christened their lips with his kisses. “Annabeth, of course. How many others?”

He grabs my hand, squeezing his thumb into my palm, drawing my attention to his face. He stares into my eyes. “You. Are. It.”

I smile, conscious of the growing heat spreading in my cheeks, my arms, and my legs. My heart.

He guides me away from the edge and presses my back against the door. He takes my mouth with his. Our tongues dance, neither of us fighting for control. We slip into an easy rhythm, giving what the other needs instead of taking what we want. He releases my hand. I wind it around his neck, pulling him closer. He traces my sides, dragging slow, seductive trails over my ribs, the indention at my stomach, my hips. His hands link behind me, holding me in the embrace.

I reach under his shirt and stroke his hard abs, wanting no barrier between us, no fabric. No words. No haunting pasts.

He leans down, brushing simple, soft kisses across my chest, sending a chilling yet fiery sensation over my body. He pulls up my dress and lays his hot hands on my skin.

“
Quinn,” I moan into his neck, needing more than his hands caressing me.

“Come on, we’ll get eaten out here.” He pulls on the doorknob behind me until I shift to the side.