Robin in the Hood (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 1) (16 page)

“Don’t run from love, Rubina,” she whispered to me in a heartbreaking Italian accent. “Embrace it.”

With that, she reached out to cup my cheek. Her fingers felt warm and soft, kind of like arriving . . . home.

Startled, I jerked a little.

But instead of the woman’s hand, all I felt on my cheek were two small feathers.

Holding them up, I trembled at the sight—one was black and one was white—like two roads I could possibly take in life. My vision was still a bit hazy, but I glanced around, realizing I was nowhere near my old classroom at Pinnacle. Instead, I was high up in the trees of Bender Lake on a wooden platform that was covered in the delicate spring petals from a blossoming dogwood nearby. Beside my feet were scattered an array of twenty-dollar bills, still drying in the late afternoon sun.

And then there was the nearly naked body of the handsomest guy I’d ever seen, his back to me, sleeping. A pile of dry clothes lay beside him and a couple of more wigs—items I knew that we would soon wear for more hits.

Because it turned out that Granny Tinker was right.

When I crossed the lake this morning with Creek, it was like the River Styx that we’d learned about in 7th period Classical Mythology at Pinnacle. My life was never going to be the same. I wasn’t the Robin McArthur I used to know anymore.

I was a girl who’d actually kissed a guy—twice!

I knew how to start a motorcycle now.

And I was a criminal.

This underworld that I’d crossed into had more than its share of consequences. I sat up on the platform, my gaze shifting to Creek, who continued to sleep soundly. He’d told me earlier, when we’d walked back from the lake to the woods, that we were “vampires” now. Not the sparkly kind in teenage novels that I used to devour like potato chips, but the real ones who must sleep during the day and only come out at night because they’re wanted by the law—as well as by guys like Bob, who Creek said “Play dirty as hell.”

What he meant by dirty I didn’t even care to know. It may sound strange, but even after the harrowing morning of our first job together, all I wanted to know was one thing:

Who was that woman from my dream?

Was she my mother? Or just some tortured, wishful fantasy of mine?

I stared at Creek, at the beautiful form of his tan back contrasted by the ugly burn marks that ran up his arm like a vicious dot-to-dot picture that told a story I would probably never hear. A story of darkness and abuse beyond my wildest comprehension. Then my eyes settled on the ornate red tattoo of the heart on his bicep that surrounded a particularly ugly scar. Clearly, it had contained a name that he’d held dear once, and at some point, painfully scratched out.

Who might Creek have loved? I wondered.

Did he give his heart for real, like the way that beautiful Italian woman had challenged me to love in my dream, in spite all of my aggressive Pinnacle training? Was this the advice of none other than Alessia?

Perhaps that was too much for a girl like me to ever know.

But as I heard the rappings of a woodpecker echo through the forest, part of me wished that I could magically heal Creek’s wounds. Make him whole—maybe even innocent again—just like wide-eyed Dooley, the one he protected so fiercely. And I swallowed hard, daring to lift a finger to edge it closer to Creek’s bare arm. Because by now, I’d pretty much already admitted to myself that I had a deep desire to . . .

Write my name there, too.

Oh God, I thought, am I actually falling in love?

E
m
b
r
a
c
e
i
t
, my dream woman had said, as though she’d led her life full of regrets.

And didn’t want me to be that way.

I held my breath.

For just one winsome moment, I wanted to touch Creek on that heart tattoo while he was sleeping—while he wasn’t alert enough to put up any of those cold barriers between him and me, from a life that had been harder than I would ever imagine.

So I carefully—oh so carefully—skimmed my finger along the upraised ridges of that scar.

And Creek’s strong hands were gripped around my shoulders in an instant.

I was so frightened I felt like the wind had been sucked out from my lungs.

“Don’t
e
v
e
r
touch me there!” he cried, glaring at me.

Wild eyed, Creek’s expression was so full of adrenaline I thought for certain he was going to kill me.

I wriggled uselessly, his tight fingers pressing white against my skin that hurt like hell. Wincing, I muttered, “C-Creek, I j-just wanted to—”

“Wanted what?” He demanded with a cruel urgency that brought me to tears. I bravely fought them back, because in my heart I knew—

He wasn’t even speaking to me.

He was speaking to someone else. Someone who’d really . . . hurt
him.

“Ow!” I cried out finally, when I couldn’t take the pain anymore, but Creek wasn’t about to let go until he got his answer. He shook me a little.

“I-I just wanted to touch you,” I explained. “I mean, when you aren’t awake and you don’t have those barriers anymore.”

Creek blinked at me, incredulous. I could tell my words had begun to trickle into his mind a little. He shook his head as if shocked at himself—at his own kneejerk violence. He seemed to be just now registering that I wasn’t at all who he thought I was.

His grip loosened like he’d been lost in a delirium, and he slid his hands down my arms, yet his eyes still seemed a world away.

“Who was she?” I asked, my heart in my throat. After all, it was pretty damn clear to me that she was sitting right there between us, like a blockade.

Creek’s whole body stiffened. He let go of me and folded his arms, all tough as steel again. Then his eyes locked on mine, now rife with bitterness.

“She was someone who could walk away from Turtle Shores and waltz right back into her cushy life again, any time she felt like it.”

In that instant, goose bumps danced over my entire being.

But I’d had enough—

Creek’s life might have been rough, but mine wasn’t exactly a picnic lately, either. And nothing gave him the right to hurt me.

“Well I don’t get that privilege anymore. Do you hear me? It’s all gone! Everything I ever had at Indian Hill. And as far as I’m concerned, I’ve earned the right to know her name.”

Creek’s eyes narrowed, studying mine. “What makes you think that?”

I crossed my arms and held my ground. “Because you know all of my secrets now. In fact, you’ve known them most of your life—with Doyle, and Alessia, and God knows who else from my family has been around here fucking things up. But I don’t know yours.”

“You know plenty,” Creek scoffed, grabbing a dry pair of jeans from the clothing pile he’d stashed on the platform. He slipped them on and stood up, as if taunting me.

And I stood up right along with him.

“But I want to know everything,” I pressed. “You said there are no secrets in trailer parks—except from
m
e
, is that it? Just because I was raised posh in Cincinnati by a white trash dad done good, you get to treat me like a second class citizen now. Isn’t that a little hypocritical?”

I tugged on a pair of dry jeans as well and zipped them up.

“Look,” I said, feeling a bit silly with just my Pinnacle-issue bra on top. “If we’re going to keep doing this—”

My breath snagged at the harsh reality of my life for a second.

“You know—robbing places—that means we need to have each other’s backs. And be completely ru-ruuuu—”

I didn’t just trip this time—I did a full-blown belly flop over that word.

Good God, I thought, I don’t believe I’ve ever said the term
r
e
a
l
to someone before and actually meant it, especially with my cold upbringing and steady Geisha brainwashing. It was like all of those other words I’d never gotten to really experience before in life: love—bonding—family. But for some weird reason, I was starting to believe that mysterious Italian woman from my dream was right, mother or not.

“We gotta be real with each other,” I spit out bravely. “Didn’t you notice that Bob shot at us today? With a real gun? So if I’m gonna risk my life with you for the people at Turtle Shores, I deserve to know as much about you as you do about me. Including what her name was.”

I boldly poked at the scar on his arm this time, no longer giving a damn what he thought anymore or how tough he was. Because the way I saw it, either the stakes were even for both of us, or it was high time I grabbed my dad and hitchhiked to another trailer park.

Creek simply smirked at me and started to laugh.

“I know what this is really about,” he nodded, that rotten scar on his cheek crinkling into a dagger again as if to intimidate me. “You’re just riled up because I kissed you.”

“No,” I huffed, clenching my fists. “The issue here is—”

He leaned in closer, nose to nose—totally interrupting me.

“And you’ve never been kissed by a guy before,” he hissed like an accusation, a giant grin spreading across his handsome face.

Shit!

Now Creek had that secret down, too—

Was it really so obvious?

I swiftly glanced aside, trying to hide my embarrassment, when I felt him run his hand gently down my long, curly hair, then cup my cheek.

Creek’s body was so close I could feel the heat of his skin near mine.

“So if I do give you her name,” he said tantalizingly, “do I get another kiss?”

I’m not sure I could’ve refused him if my life depended on it.

But just to be cocky, I scrunched up my nose and said, “Maybe.”

For a second his eyes grew cold again, in that way I absolutely hated.

“Her name was bitch. You got that?” Creek stared me down. “No, make that bitch-of-the-fuckin’-century. But you must believe me, Robin. I know the difference between her and you.”

He took a fleeting glance at the scar on his arm and closed his eyes for a second, as if shutting an iron door. He looked again into my eyes.

“She didn’t have a heart, and you do. Never in a million years would she have risked her life to help take care of her dad—or anybody else for that matter—like you did today. And considering where you came from, and how you were raised, that’s pretty damn amazing.”

I felt my eyes glisten over with tears.

More than that, I felt them slide right down my cheeks.

No one had ever accused me of having a heart before! How could Creek see something in me that I’d never even admitted to myself?

He clutched my face and gently brushed away the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “So do I get that kiss now?” he whispered.

I nodded, and pressed my lips to his. They felt soft and luxurious against my skin, far more than the genuine mink collar I used to have on my Gaultier winter jacket. Such a thing seemed dead to me now, compared to the throbbing heart I could feel from Creek’s firm chest against mine.

Goodbye bitch, hello Robin! I thought, absolutely glowing inside. And I couldn’t help wondering if this meant we were boyfriend and girlfriend now, since maybe the cobwebs of our pasts had finally been cleared out?

But I didn’t have the time to brave that question to him, because as I impulsively ran my hands through Creek’s silky, blonde hair, I suddenly heard shots over our heads.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM, they went, like a dozen guns.

I hit the deck, covering my head.

“Get down, Creek!” I shouted desperately. “Bob’s found us!”

More boom-boom-booms filled the air, but between their echoes reverberating through the woods, I heard Creek . . . laughing?

He grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me to my feet, dusting me off a little.

“Those aren’t shots, silly,” he said, brazenly stealing another kiss. “They’re fireworks.”

He swiveled me around to see the sky through a gap in the trees.

Sure enough, I spotted a projectile racing into the air that exploded, sending colorful sparks spiraling down in a sky that I hadn’t realized had already grown gray at the edge of twilight.

“Quick, get a shirt on. The TNT Twins are sending up their rockets!” Creek smiled. “You’re about to be invited to your very first hoedown, girl.”

Creek stole yet another kiss—

“Welcome to
r
e
a
l
, Robin.”

“Do you guys always celebrate robberies like this?” I asked Creek, fanning the smoke from the TNT Twins’ homemade fireworks that stung my eyes and nose. I’d heard wild whoops that made it sound like they already knew we’d brought back a sack of cash.

“Hell no,” Creek laughed, coughing. “If we did that every time some fool committed a crime near Bender Lake, there’d be a non-stop block party going on. But word’s probably gotten out by now. Gossip ’round here is faster than chain lightning. Lucky for us, Bob and his bloodhounds have a healthy fear of the TNT Twins’ explosives.”

He turned to pick up a blouse from the stack of clothes on the tree platform.

“Tonight at Turtle Shores is kind of special. So I, um . . . brought something for you.”

He handed me a lavender blouse. It felt like silk, the kind of designer item my stepmom used to try and buy me off with so I wouldn’t rat to my dad about her affairs. But when I glanced up at Creek, though his features were tanned and scarred—some might even call rough—I could tell by the guarded look in his eyes that his heart was secretly on the line. As much as he’d ever allowed it to be, anyway.

So this blouse is actually a gift? I thought, amazed. That means something to him?

Does that imply
I
mean something to him, too?

I shuffled my feet for a second on the platform, running my fingers over the pretty flowers embroidered on the blouse’s neckline.

Did Creek steal this? I wondered, my hands all of a sudden feeling tingly. I wrestled inside with whether that nixed any romantic currency.

Creek’s lips tightened, as if he were a bit unsettled by my reaction, and his eyes checked mine. But this time they weren’t cold or warm. They were . . .