Stolen Wishes (10 page)

I remember doing that as a kid. Before the
move. Before the end of our world as we knew it. Is it too late to
give my sisters a chance at that childhood?

Doubt lodges like a soggy lump in my
throat.

“Can I help you?”

I snap my head up, startled. “No, I’m good.
I—” My eyes connect with the owner of the voice, and I lose my
capacity for speech.

“Holy shit.” The Adonis from my past narrows
his eyes. “Cally?”

The sound of my name on his tongue catapults
me back in time and suddenly I’m sixteen again, his cool cotton
sheets sliding against my skin as his fingertips trace the line of
my jaw, the hollow of my neck, the curve of my hip. I’m sixteen
again and licking sweet strawberry wine from his lips.

Time has been kind to William Bailey.
Bare-chested and glistening with sweat, he has an iPod strapped
around his thick biceps and a T-shirt tucked into the side of his
running shorts. He’s bigger than he was at eighteen, more built,
which is saying something since he was New Hope High School’s star
football player back then. My gaze drifts south but gets snagged at
the ripple of his abs and the trail of blond hair disappearing into
the band of his shorts.

Sweet Jesus.

The sound of him clearing his throat has me
yanking my eyes back up to meet his.

“Look at you. You’re all grown up.” He
grins, and my knees go a little weak. How could I have forgotten
the effect this man’s smile has on my knees?

“I could say the same for you.” I bite my
lip. Hopefully no drool has escaped.

That knee-killing grin grows wider. I’m
toast.

This isn’t what I expected. Not that I
expected anything from William. I
hoped
to make it through
my few days in town without seeing him, but of course not. Here he
is. Looking for all the world like he’s actually glad to see me
when he should hate me.

“You live here? I mean around—”
Shit.
How am I supposed to construct a coherent sentence while looking at
his bare chest? And that’s not even taking into account the
memories flooding my mind at the sight of him. I may have never had
sex with him, but I have enough memories of doing
everything
else
to rival even the most creative fantasies.

Shifting my gaze to those deep blue eyes is
no better. A girl doesn’t forget those eyes watching her as their
owner slides his hand between her legs for the first time.

I study the ground and wave a hand to
indicate the spot where Dreyer Avenue definitely is
not
.
“I’m looking for my dad.”

“You’re in the wrong neighborhood.” His
voice has that low, delicious treble that makes my insides
shimmy.

When I sneak a peek up at him through my
lashes, I catch him studying me with his own assessing gaze.

I can imagine what he sees. We’ve been on
the road for two days, pulling off only for gas and restroom
breaks. We stopped in Kansas last night so I could get a few hours
of sleep, and then it was back in the car at four a.m. for another
full day today.

I would categorize my ensemble as “road trip
chic.” My snug-fitting black yoga pants end just below my knees,
and I’m wearing a T-shirt that says
Peanut butter jelly
time!
The outfit is topped off with bright orange flip-flops
and the ponytail I threw my hair into this morning.

So, you know, the exact outfit I
wouldn’t
have chosen to be wearing for a reunion with my
first love.

I lean into my car for the scrap of paper
with Dad’s address and shove it into William’s hand. “Can you help
me find this?”

He doesn’t look at the paper but frowns at
me. “Seriously? You’re lost?” He pauses a beat. “In New Hope?” His
tone suggests that I’ve gotten myself lost in a paper bag. And,
okay, New Hope
is
pretty damn small, but I haven’t lived
here in seven years, and it’s changed a lot. The good areas are all
run down now, the factories are closed, and the vast expanses of
open land by the river have been developed into fancy neighborhoods
with yuppy McMansions so ostentatious I can practically smell their
oversized mortgages.

“My GPS keeps trying to get me to drive into
the river.”

At least that wipes the scowl off his face.
“Yeah, GPS systems haven’t kept up with the developments around
here real well.” He rubs the back of his neck, and the movement
sends the muscles in his arm and shoulder flexing. Between his
sweaty muscles and my memories, I’m pretty sure my panties have all
but disintegrated.

I clear my throat and resort to
asphalt-gazing again. How hard is it to put on a shirt? “If you can
point me in the right direction, I’ll get out of your hair. I’m
sure I’m the last person you wanted to see today.”

His grunt has me looking up at him again.
Those blue eyes, those crazy blond curls. That mouth. “Cally…”

I sink my teeth into my bottom lip as our
gazes tangle. He takes a step toward me, and he’s so close, I have
to lift my chin to keep my eyes on his, have to curl my fingers
into my fists to keep from touching him. He’s sweaty and solid and
so damn gorgeous.

I wait—for him to tell me how horrible I am
for what I did to him, for him to ask me why I did what I did. I
don’t know what I’d say. It’s hard to imagine that, once, leaving
New Hope—leaving William—seemed like the worst thing that could
happen to me. I was so wrong.

But he doesn’t ask and he doesn’t move away
from me. His gaze dips to my lips for the briefest moment, and the
way my body responds to his nearness, even all these years later,
even after…everything…it only confirms what I suspected.

After seven years. After the lamest breakup
in the history of breakups. After breaking his heart and dismissing
my own, I’m still very much
his
.

***

William

Cally.

I can hardly breathe. My brain doesn’t have
time for something as trivial as oxygen when it’s so busy
cataloguing her features, memorizing the exact shade of her mocha
eyes, warring with the anger and regret that have sprung to life as
if they never left me to begin with.

I never thought I’d see her again. I didn’t
think I wanted to.

The moment I step closer, I realize my
mistake. Being near her is like a sip of water to desert-parched
lips. It whips something through me—memories, lust, first love.
Heartbreak.
She tilts her lips up to mine, and I actually
think for one goddamned ridiculous minute that I might kiss her,
that I want to. That I would swallow all my pride and forgive her
for just one taste.

I step back before I can give in to the
impulse, and her cheeks blaze to life, her blush as cute as the
rest of her. That’s the word for her: cute. Sweet smile and peppy
ponytail, she exudes cuteness.

Except her ass. Her ass doesn’t even land in
the same stratosphere as cute, and those tight little pants do
nothing to hide its soft, round curves. And her breasts. There’s
definitely nothing
cute
about the way her T-shirt stretches
across their fullness. Or her go-for-miles legs. Not to mention the
narrow strip of skin exposed between the hem of her shirt and
waistband of her pants. Just looking at the single inch of flesh
below her navel, and I practically taste strawberry wine.

Moonlight. Her warm skin under my tongue.
The sound of her moan as my mouth dips lower.

The memory grabs hold of my senses and won’t
let go.

Fuck
. I can’t even lie to myself.
Nothing about her says
cute.
Everything about her says
sex.
And
mine
.

“Directions?” she asks. “To my father’s
house?”

“Do you want me to walk you there? It’s
close.”

I immediately regret the impulsive
suggestion. I should be giving her directions, putting her in the
car, and sending her back out of my life. But I want to be close to
her for a minute, to prove to myself that I’m bigger than a
seven-year-old shit breakup.

Or I want to prove to myself she’s more than
just a dream.

She worries that plump bottom lip between
her teeth because, obviously, she’s trying to torture me. How can I
want her so much when I thought I hated her?

“I don’t bite, Cally.”

She mutters something I can’t quite make
out. It kind of sounds like “Damn shame,” but I can’t be sure
because she’s grabbing her purse and avoiding my eyes.

“Are you staying long?” I ask as we start
walking. My voice sounds too damn hopeful and I hate that, but what
are the chances she’d show up here again, let alone find herself
lost right in front of my house?

She’s here to see her dad,
I remind
myself. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, but as far as I know
this is the only time she’s been back since she moved away.

“No. Not too long. Maybe a couple of days.
I…my mom died, and I need to get my sisters settled in with my
dad.”

I stop walking and turn to face her, all my
bitterness and aggravation falling away.

She’s looking at the ground, those worry
lines making an appearance again. I grab her hand and squeeze. “I’m
sorry.” I don’t ask what happened. Having lost both of my parents
when I was a kid, I know how quickly that question gets old.

“Me too.”

We both know there’s not much else to say,
so we walk instead. She follows me, and we cut through my yard to
the paved path down by the river. I resist the urge to point out my
house, to show her how well I’ve done for myself. It would be
mostly a lie anyway.

“So you still live here in New Hope?” she
asks softly.

“I came back after undergrad.”

“Anybody else stick around?”

I narrow my eyes at her. Does she already
know my screwed-up history with the Thompson family, or is the
question sincere? “Some of the guys from the team—Max, Sam, Grant.
And all the Thompson girls except Krystal. She just moved to
Florida with her boyfriend last month.”

The mention of her old friends brings a
smile to her lips and lights up her face, making her look like her
old self. “Lizzy and Hanna are in town?”

“You should see if you can hook up with them
before you leave. They’d love to see you.”

She doesn’t reply, but there’s something
about the way her face changes that tells me she’s not going to
seek them out. I wish I didn’t need so badly to understand why.
Cally didn’t want to leave when her mom moved her away. She didn’t
want to leave her friends or her family. Didn’t want to leave the
life she had here. She was determined to keep in touch with us all,
even talked about coming back here for college. She hadn’t been
gone but a couple of months when all that changed, and suddenly she
would have nothing to do with any of us. Even me.

Arlen Fisher’s cabin is along the river just
off New Dreyer Avenue. The original road was closed in favor of
creating some common green space for the new construction. This, of
course, was code for putting some distance between the old rough
neighborhood and the ritzy new one.

When I point to Arlen’s house from the
trail, she frowns.

“It’s really…small.”

Her dad’s a rough man. Simple to the
extreme. His cabin sits in the trees just beyond the flood zone.
It’s small, no-frills, and falling apart.

“Are you nervous?”

She’s slowed her steps, consciously or not.
“I’ve only seen him a handful of times since we moved.”

That surprises me. Someone would have told
me if she’d been back, as there aren’t exactly secrets in this
town, but I would have expected that her dad took trips to Nevada
to see all three of his girls. “Really?”

She shrugs. “It wasn’t what we intended, but
things just never worked out. You know my dad. He has other
priorities.”

I remember, vaguely. The man liked books and
studying religious texts. He liked to spend his time meditating and
his money visiting psychics and spiritual leaders. “That
sucks.”

“The road goes both ways,” she says, and I
don’t know if she’s reminding herself of her own responsibility to
the relationship or his.

“How do your sisters feel about moving back
here?”

She leans over and picks up a gnarled tree
branch. It’s as long as her legs, and its beautiful knots stand in
contrast to the smooth skin of her hands. I already wish I had my
camera.

“He sent me my ballet slippers,” she says
softly. “After he found out about Mom’s death. I didn’t even know
he had them, and they showed up in this package—these tiny little
slippers Mom and I had picked out together before my first lesson.”
Her lips curve in a smile. “I was only five, and I remember him
telling me, ‘If you want to be a ballerina, just believe you will
be.’ It was always that simple with him.”

Once, it was that simple with Cally, too. I
was drawn to her because that unfettered optimism radiated from
her. After spending my formative years in my cynical grandmother’s
house, Cally was a breath of fresh air.

I look up at the house. The sun has dropped
in the sky, and the little cabin looms darkly in the shade of the
trees. “Are you ready?”

“I think so.”

“Want me to wait here?” Again, I surprise
myself. I should be itching to get away from her, from the reminder
of what she did to me, but it all seems so long ago and unimportant
under the pall of the crappy last couple of years. And next to the
news of her mother’s death, my old resentment seems downright
trivial.

Her shoulders drop with her exhale. She’s
nervous. “Thanks.”

She maneuvers through the trees and up the
steep wooden stairs to the house. After knocking on the door twice,
she turns the branch in her hands, waiting, fidgeting, while I wait
in the trees. This whole thing should feel much more awkward than
it does.

She knocks again, leaning forward this time
to peek in the window.