Truly Madly Yours

Chapter Seven

They drove three miles out of town and parked on the sandy shore of Angel Beach. The property was secluded and they had to open a wire gate to get to it. It was an area Delaney knew fairly well. Dense forest gave way to white sand, and it all belonged to Henry.

Nick leaned his behind against the hood of the Mustang, then planted one foot on the bumper. He pulled two Coors out of the six-pack, then set the rest next to him. “Have you ever drank a beer?” he asked, popping the two tops and handing one to Delaney.

She’d been allowed to taste Henry’s. “Yeah, sure. All the time.”

He slanted her a glance from beneath his lashes. “All the time, huh?” He raised the can to his lips and took a long pull.

Delaney watched him and took a sip of her own beer. She hid her grimace by turning her back and looking out at Lake Mary twenty feet in front of her. A shimmering path led across the dark ripples to the full moon hanging low above the water. The trail looked magical, like you could step from the shore onto it and never get wet. Like you could walk across the water and end up someplace exotic. She tried her beer again, and this time she succeeded in keeping the frown from her face. A cool breeze whispered across her skin, but she wasn’t cold.

“I take it you don’t want to go to the U of I.”

She turned back toward Nick. Streaks of moonlight glistened in his dark hair. “No, I don’t want to go to college right now.”

“Then don’t.”

She laughed and took a few more sips of her beer. “Yeah, right. When has what I wanted ever counted for anything? Henry didn’t even ask me which classes I’d like to take this fall. He just signed me up and paid for it all.”

Nick was quiet for a moment and Delaney didn’t have to ask him what he was thinking. The irony spoke louder than words. Nick worked his way through college to pay for the privilege his father was forcing on Delaney. “Tell the old man to shove it. I would.”

“I know you would, but I can’t.”

He raised the can and asked, “Why not?”

Because she’d always felt like she owed Henry for rescuing her mother and her from that tiny Airstream trailer on the outskirts of Las Vegas. “I just can’t.” Her gaze took in the black outline of the mountains before resting once again on Nick. “This is so weird,” she said. “I never would have thought you and I would be drinking buddies.”

“Why’s that?”

She looked at him like he was slightly retarded.

“Because you’re who you are. And I’m me,” she said and took a few more sips.

His gaze narrowed. “You mean because you’re the mayor’s daughter and I’m his bastard son?”

His bluntness surprised her. Most of the people she knew didn’t come right out and say things like that. They kissed the air above your cheek and said you looked good when you didn’t. She wondered what it was like to have that kind of freedom. “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“How would you put it then?”

“That your family hates me, and my family doesn’t care for you.”

He tilted his head back and drained half his beer. He studied her over the top of the can until he lowered it again. “It’s a little more complex than that.”

“True. You’ve spent most of your life torturing me.”

One corner of his full mouth lifted. “I never tortured you. I may have teased you occasionally.”

“Ha! When I was in third grade you told me that Reggie Overton stole little blond-haired girls and fed them to his Dobermans. I was terrified of Reggie for years.”

“And you’ve spent most of your life walking around with your nose in the air as if I smell bad.”

“No, I haven’t.” Delaney didn’t think she’d ever looked at anyone like that.

“Yes, you have,” he assured her.

“Than why did you kiss me tonight?”

His gaze slid to her mouth. “Curious.”

“Curious to see if I’d let you?”

He chuckled quietly and let his eyes move down the row of buttons closing her dress. “No,” he said as if a rejection had never occurred to him. He looked back up into her eyes. “Curious to see if you taste as sweet as you look.”

She stood as tall as she could and took a few chugs of beer for courage before she asked, “What did you decide?”

He crooked his finger at her and said in a low and sensual voice, “Come here, wild thing.”

Something in his voice, what he said and the way he said it, drew her to him like they were connected by string and he was just reeling her in. A funny little tickle pulled at her stomach.

“I’ve decided you taste like my Uncle Josu’s huckleberry wine. Definitely sweet, but with a warm kick.”

She hid her smile behind the Coors can. She wanted to be like wine. “Is that bad?”

He took the beer from her hand and set it behind him on the hood of the car. “Depends on what you want to do about it.” He set his beer next to hers and stood in one smooth motion. He placed two fingers beneath her chin and stared into her eyes. “Has anyone ever kissed you until you were so hot you were burning up?”

She didn’t answer, not wanting to admit that she’d never been so consumed or burned up with passion that she’d lost her head or her fear of Henry.

Nick moved his hands to the sides of her neck, and he looked into her eyes. “Until you didn’t care about anything else?” He lowered his face to her ear. “Has anyone ever touched your breasts?” he whispered. “Under the shirt, beneath your bra? Where your skin is warm and soft?”

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

“Slipped his hand inside your panties?” His hot open mouth moved across her cheek. “Felt between your legs where you’re slick and ready?”

Besides health class, no one had ever really talked to Delaney about sex before. What she knew, she’d learned from movies and from eavesdropping on other girls at school. Even Lisa assumed she was a prude, but apparently not Nick. Nick saw what no one else did, and instead of being offended at his language, she turned her face and kissed him. For years she’d heard rumors about his sexual conquests. She didn’t want him to think her naive and boring in comparison, and she purposely turned up the passion and devoured him with her lips and tongue. She let herself fall head first into the dizzy heat burning her flesh. Her young body filled with the hot juices of desire, and for the first time in her life, she let go of everything else.

The kiss shattered their differences, sweeping them away on a glut of passion. His hands moved to her back and slid to her behind. He palmed each cheek, then dragged her on to the balls of her feet and crushed her breasts against his chest. He pulled her against his pelvis and let her feel his long hard erection. She wasn’t afraid. Instead she felt free. Free to explore for herself what other girls her age knew. Free to be a desirable eighteen-year-old on the verge of becoming a grown woman. She was flushed with new sensations and wonder, and she wanted him to touch her like he would any other girl. To lose herself in him.

He pulled back and let her slide down his body.

“We better stop right there, wild thing.”

Delaney didn’t want to stop. Not yet. She slid right back up his chest, fitting her body to his. She licked her lips and tasted him there. “No.” A shudder ran through him and he stared at her as if he wanted to shove her away but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. She looked into his eyes then let her gaze skim his handsome face. She kissed his cheek and just below his ear. “I’m staying right here.” She opened her mouth and licked his warm flesh. He smelled of soap and skin and cool mountain breezes.

His hands moved to her waist, then slipped up her sides, bunching the material of her dress. The hem rode up to the top of her thighs, and he pressed his erection into her abdomen. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

She nodded.

“Tell me. Tell me so there’s no mistake.”

“Touch me like you said.”

He filled his palm with her right breast. “Here?”

Her nipple tightened into a hard point. “Yes.”

“You never answered my question. Has anyone ever touched you like this?”

She looked into his eyes, and it was like she was seeing a whole other side of Nick. For the first time she saw past the breathtaking face to the man inside. She didn’t know this Nick. His gaze was intense, yet he caressed her as if she were made of something delicate. “No.”

“Why?” He lightly brushed his thumb over the tip of her breast, and she bit her lip to keep from moaning out loud. “You’re beautiful, Delaney, and you could have anyone you want. Why me?”

She knew she wasn’t beautiful, not like her mother. But the way he looked at her and touched her, and the tone of his voice when he said it made her almost believe him. He made her believe anything was possible. “Because you make me not want to say no.”

He groaned deep in his throat and lowered his mouth to hers once again. The kiss started as a light brush of lips but quickly turned hard, wet, rough. The carnal thrust of his tongue touched something equally carnal within her and she squirmed against him. She wanted to crawl inside Nick, feel surrounded by him. When he finally set her away from him, her breathing was heavy. He reached for the buttons that closed her dress, and he gazed into her eyes as he worked downward until the pink cotton lay open past her waist. A twinge of apprehension penetrated the warm haze clouding her head. No man had ever seen her naked, and while she wanted him to touch her, she didn’t necessarily want him to look at her. Not a man like Nick who’d seen more than his fair share of naked women, but then he pushed the dress apart and it was too late. The cool air beaded her already taut nipples, and he lowered his gaze to her bare breasts. He stared at her so long her apprehension grew and she raised her hands to shield herself from him.

“Don’t hide from me.” He grabbed hold of her wrists and held them behind her back. Her spine arched, and the straps of her dress fell down her arms. He again leaned his behind against the hood of the car, bringing his face level with her naked breasts. He whispered her name, then kissed between her cleavage. His cool cheek brushed the inside slope of her breast, and she forgot all about her apprehension. “You’re beautiful.” His words warmed her skin and tugged at her heart, and this time she believed he meant what he said. He rested his forehead against her, his dark hair in stark contrast to her white flesh. “I knew you would be. I’ve always known. Always.” Then his hot mouth drifted across her breast and he slid the seam of his lips across the very tip. “I knew you’d be pink right here.”

For one fleeting second Delaney wondered how he knew, but then his tongue circled her nipple and her brain shut to cohesive thought. Her breathing became shallow as she watched his tongue curl, licking her.

“Do you like this?”

Behind her, Delaney’s hands tightened into fists. “Yes.”

“How much?”

“A… a lot.”

“Do you want more?”

Delaney closed her eyes and her head fell to one side. “Yes,” she answered, and he drew her nipple into his mouth. His lips tugged and she felt the pull between her legs. It felt good. So good she didn’t want him to stop. Ever. His mouth moved to her other breast and he sucked that nipple also. His tongue licked and stabbed and drove her fidgety for more. “Nick,” she whispered and pulled her wrists free of his grasp. Her dress fell to the ground and pooled about her feet. She dug her fingers into his hair, holding him to her breast.

“More?”

“Yes.” She didn’t really know exactly what she wanted, but she definitely wanted more of the hot ache pooling in her abdomen. She wanted more of him.

One of his big warm hands slid between her legs and he gently cupped her crotch. The thin cotton of her underwear was the only barrier separating his palm from her sensitive flesh. “You’re wet.”

The hot ache intensified and she could hardly speak. “I’m sorry,” she managed.

“Don’t be. I’ve always wanted to make your panties wet.” He stood once again and gave her a quick kiss. Then he grasped her waist and set her on the hood of the Mustang he’d just vacated. He moved her feet to the chrome bumper and said, “Lie down, Delaney.”

“Why?” She put a hand on his chest then moved it to the front of his jeans. She pressed against the hard bulge beneath his zipper.

He sucked in his breath and pushed her shoulders until she lay with her back against the cool metal. “Because I’m going to make you feel real good.”

“I already feel good.” She held out her arms for him as he stepped between her thighs.

“Then I’m going to make you feel even better.” He planted both of his palms by the sides of her head and kissed her like he wanted to consume her. When he raised his mouth again he said, “I’m going to set you on fire.”

Delaney looked up into his beautiful face and she wanted him to make love to her. She wanted to know what other young women her age knew. She wanted Nick to teach her. “Yes,” she said to anything he wanted.

He smiled as his skillful hands eased her panties from her legs. She felt the cotton slide down her calves and then her underwear was gone. His palms drifted up the insides of her thighs, and one of his thumbs touched her where she was slick. The pleasure was indescribable. His fingers brushed her moist flesh until she wanted to scream.

“More?”

“Yes,” she murmured and her eyes slid shut. “More.” His touch felt so good it was almost painful, the building pressure in her groin intense. She wanted it to end, yet at the same time continue forever. She wanted him naked and on top of her, filling her arms with his warm body. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, standing there between her knees, looking down at her through heavy lids. “Make love to me, Nick.”

“I’ll give you something better than love.” He knelt on one knee and softly kissed the inside of her thigh. “I’m going to make you come.” Delaney froze, extremely grateful she was surrounded by darkness. When she’d said yes, she hadn’t meant that. She would have clamped her legs together but Nick was in the way. She wasn’t sure what he would do, but she was pretty sure he wouldn’t do that.

But he did. He slid his hands beneath her behind, then raised her to his hot open mouth. Shock held her still. She couldn’t believe what he’d done. What he was doing. She wanted to tell him to stop, but she couldn’t get the words past the warm pleasure swirling through her body. She couldn’t control the shiver tingling up her spine and instead of pulling away, she arched her back. His tongue and mouth gently caressed between her legs in much the same way he’d kissed her breasts.

“Nick,” she moaned and touched her hands to the sides of his head. The pleasure grew and tightened and each touch of his tongue pushed her toward the peak of climax. He moved one of her heels to his shoulder and tilted her hips. He took her more fully into his mouth and drew on her sensitive flesh. The incredible sensations built and coiled in her body, then shoved her over the top.

The stars above her head blurred as she felt herself pulled under wave after hot wave of ecstasy. She called his name over and over as heat flushed her thighs and breasts. Involuntary contractions shook her, and when it was over she felt changed. She was shocked by what she’d done and who’d done it to her, but she wasn’t sorry. She’d never felt so close to anyone else in her life, and she wanted him to hold her.

“Nick?”

He gently kissed the inside of her thigh. “Mmm.”

At the touch of his lips, she suddenly became very aware of her embarrassing position. She felt her cheeks burn as she slid her foot from his shoulder and sat up.

He stood and cupped her face in his hands. “More?”

She was naive, not stupid, and she knew what he was asking. She wanted to give him the same awesome pleasure he’d just given her. “More.” She pulled his T-shirt from the waistband of his jeans and released the buttons of his fly. His hands wrapped around her wrists and stopped her.

“Be still a minute,” he said right before a beam of light struck him full in the face. “Shit!”

Delaney glanced over her shoulder and was blinded by two headlights gunning toward them. Pure adrenaline shot through her veins, and she pushed Nick and jumped off the hood at the same time. Her dress lay at his feet and she reached for it just as Henry’s silver Lincoln slid to a stop beside the Mustang. She pulled the summer dress over her head but her hands shook so bad she couldn’t button it. “Help me,” she cried to no one in particular.

Nick turned, and he reached for the buttons at the waist of her dress. He whispered something to her, but she couldn’t hear him over the pounding in her ears.

“Get away from her!” Henry bellowed the second he opened the car door.

She managed the top two buttons but was helpless to control the panic welling within her. She glanced at the ground and saw Nick’s big foot in the crotch of her panties. Distressed little sobs filled the top of her lungs.

“Get your filthy damn hands off her!”

Delaney looked up just as Henry reached them. He shoved Nick and pushed her behind him. Both men were of the same height, same build, same flashing gray eyes. The Lincoln’s headlights lit every excruciating detail. The stripe on Henry’s dress shirt, the silver in his hair.

“I never thought you’d sink this low,” Henry said as he pointed at Nick. “I’ve always known you hated me, but I never thought you’d sink this low just to get back at me.”

“Maybe this has nothing to do with you,” Nick said, his brows lowered on his forehead.

“My aching ass this has nothing to do with me. You’ve hated me all your life, and you’ve been jealous of Delaney since the day I married her mother.”

“You’re right. I have hated you all of my life. You’re a son of a bitch, and the biggest favor you ever did my mother was deny you ever slept with her.”

“And you finally got your revenge. The only reason you screwed Delaney was to get back at me.”

Nick folded his arms over his chest and rested his weight on one foot. “Maybe I screwed her because she makes me hard.”

“I should beat the hell out of you.”

“Give it your best shot, old man.”

“Oh, God,” Delaney groaned as she finished the buttons on her dress. “Henry, we didn’t-”

“Get in the car,” Henry interrupted her.

She looked at Nick, and gone was the gentle lover who’d made her feel beautiful. “Tell him!” A few moments ago she’d felt so close to him, now she didn’t know him at all. He appeared relaxed, but it was an illusion. Or maybe she did know this Nick. This surly man before her was the Nick she’d grown up with; the man who’d picked her up earlier had been the illusion. “Please, tell him nothing happened,” she pleaded with him to help her out of the worst of it. “Tell him we didn’t do anything!”

One knowing brow rose up his forehead. “What exactly do you want me to lie about, wild thing?” he asked. “He saw you sitting on my car like a hood ornament. If he’d been a few minutes earlier, he would have seen a hell of a lot more.”

“You got your revenge, didn’t you?” Henry grabbed Delaney’s arm and pushed her toward Nick. “You took an innocent girl and you made her dirty just to get even with me.”

Delaney looked into Nick’s hard gaze and she didn’t know what to believe. She wanted him to care just a little bit, but the eyes that stared back at her were so cold. Several minutes ago she would have said Henry was mistaken, but she didn’t know what to think now. “Is that true?” she asked as one tear ran down her hot cheeks. “Did you use me to get back at Henry?”

“Is that what you think?”

What he’d done to her was so private, so intimate, she didn’t think she could bear knowing he’d used her. She wanted him to tell Henry he was wrong, that he’d kissed her and touched her because he wanted her, not because he hated Henry. “I don’t know!”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

He didn’t speak for what seemed like an eternity, then he said, “Believe Henry then.”

A sob caught in her throat and she stumbled toward the Lincoln. Her chest felt as if it were caving in on itself, and she managed to get into the car before the second tear slid down her cheek. The cold leather beneath her bare behind reminded her she was completely naked under her dress. She stared out the window at both men, and above the pounding of her heart, she heard Henry threaten Nick.

“You stay away from my daughter,” he yelled. “You stay away or I’ll make your life hell.”

“You can try,” Nick said, his words barely audible through the thick glass. “But there is nothing you can do to me.”

“We’ll see about that.” Henry moved to the driver’s side of the Lincoln. “Stay away from Delaney,” he warned one last time and slid into the front seat. He slipped the car into reverse, and the headlights shone on Nick for a few short seconds. And in those few seconds, his T-shirt glowed a bright white, the soft cotton untucked at his waist, and the top button on his jeans was undone. He leaned down to pick up something, but Henry cranked the wheel and the car turned toward the road before she could see what he’d retrieved from the ground. But she didn’t have to see, she already knew. Carefully, she tucked her dress beneath her bare behind.

“This is going to kill your mother,” Henry seethed.

Probably, Delaney thought. She looked down at her hands and a tear fell on her thumb.

“She went to your room to tell you good night, but you weren’t there.” The Lincoln turned onto the main road, and Henry gunned the big engine. “She’s worried sick. She’s afraid you’ve been kidnapped.”

Delaney bit her lip to keep the customary apology inside. She didn’t care that she’d worried her mother.

“Just wait until she learns the truth is worse than anything she could have imagined.”

“How did you find me?”

“Not that it matters, but several people down at the market saw you crawl into Allegrezza’s car. If you hadn’t left the gate open at Angel Beach, it would have taken me a lot longer, but I would have found you.”

Delaney didn’t doubt him. She turned her gaze to the passenger window and stared out into the dark night. “I can’t believe you hunted me down. I’m eighteen and I can’t believe you drove around town looking for me as if I were ten years old.”

“And I can’t believe I found you naked as a two-bit hooker,” he said and kept up his verbal battering until he pulled the Lincoln into the garage.

As calm as possible under the circumstances, Delaney got out of the car and walked into the house. Her mother met her in the kitchen.

“Where have you been?” Gwen asked, her gaze sliding from Delaney’s face to her feet then back up again.

Delaney walked past without answering. Henry would tell her mother. He always did. Then together they would decide her fate. They would probably ground her as if she were a child. She moved up the stairs to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. She wasn’t trying to hide. She knew better, and even if she hadn’t, tonight’s lesson showed her the futility of independence.

She looked at her reflection in the cheval mirror. Mascara trailed down her cheeks, her eyes were red, and her face pale. Otherwise she looked as she always did. She didn’t look as if her world had shifted beneath her feet and now she stood in a new place. Her room looked the same as it had hours ago when she’d sneaked out the window. The pictures stuck to the mirror, and the roses on her bedspread were the same as they’d always been, but everything was different. She was different.

She’d let Nick do things to her that she’d never imagined in her wildest dreams. Oh, she’d heard about oral sex. A few girls in her math class had bragged about knowing how to give blow jobs, but until tonight, Delaney had never believed people actually did that sort of thing. Now she knew better. Now she knew a man didn’t even have to like the girl he was with. Now she knew that a man could do incredibly intimate things to a woman for reasons other than passion or mutual attraction. Now she knew what it was like to be used.

When she thought of Nick’s warm mouth pressed to the inside of her thigh, her pale cheeks turned red and she turned her gaze away from her reflection. What she saw embarrassed her. She’d wanted to feel free. Free from Henry’s control. Free from her life.

She was a fool.

Delaney changed into a pair of jeans and T-shirt, then washed her face. When she was finished, she went to Henry’s office, where she knew her parents would be waiting for her. They stood behind the mahogany desk, and by the look on Gwen’s face, Henry had filled her in on every excruciating detail.

Gwen’s blue eyes were wide as she looked at her daughter. “Well, I don’t know what to say to you.”

Delaney sat in one of the leather chairs opposite the desk. Not knowing what to say had never stopped her mother before. It didn’t stop her now.

“Tell me Henry is mistaken. Tell me he didn’t see you in a sexually compromising situation with that Allegrezza boy.”

Delaney didn’t say anything. She knew she wouldn’t win. She never did.

“How could you?” Gwen shook her head and placed a hand at her throat. “How could you do such a thing to this family? While you were crawling out your bedroom window did you give a thought to your father’s position in this community? While you were letting that Allegrezza boy put his hands on you, did you stop-for even one second-to think how your father would suffer for your actions?”

“No,” Delaney answered. When Nick’s head had been between her thighs, she hadn’t given a thought to her parents. She’d been busy humiliating herself.

“You know how this town loves to gossip. By ten o’clock tomorrow, everyone in town will know about your shameful behavior. How could you do this?”

“You’ve hurt your mother deeply,” Henry added. They were like tag team wrestlers, one ready to jump in when the other ran out of steam. “If your disgraceful behavior gets out, I don’t know how she’ll hold her head up in this town.” He pointed a finger at her. “We never expected this of you. You were always such a good girl. We never expected that you would do something so vulgar. I never thought you’d bring shame on this family. I guess you aren’t the person we thought you were. I guess we don’t even know you.”

Delaney’s hands clenched into fists. She knew better than to say anything. She knew defending herself only made things worse. She knew if she said anything, Henry would considered it arguing, and Henry hated for anyone to argue with him. But Delaney couldn’t help it. “That’s because you’ve never wanted to know me. You’re only interested in how I make you look. You don’t care how I feel.”

“Laney,” Gwen gasped.

“You don’t care that I don’t want to go to college right away. I told you I didn’t want to go, and you’re making me go anyway.”

“So that’s what tonight was all about,” Henry said as if he were an omnipotent God. “You wanted to get back at me for knowing what’s best for you.”

“Tonight was about me,” she said as she stood. “I wanted to go out and be a regular eighteen-year-old. I wanted to have a life. I wanted to feel free.”

“You mean feel free to screw up your life.”

“Yes! Free to screw up my life if I want to, just like everyone else. I never have the freedom to do anything. You choose everything for me. I never have a choice.”

“And it’s a good thing,” Gwen took over. “You’re immature and selfish, and tonight you chose the one boy who could hurt this family the most. You gave yourself to a person whose only interest in you was to get back at Henry.”

What Nick had done was a hot lump of humiliation burning a hole in her stomach, but the despair choking the life out of her was worse. As she looked at both of her parents she knew it was no use. They would never understand. Never change. And she would never escape.

“You’ve degraded yourself, and I can hardly stand to look at you,” her mother continued.

“Then don’t. You were going to take me to the University of Idaho in a week. Take me tomorrow instead.” Delaney walked from the room, the weight of resignation settling about her shoulders. She moved up the stairs, her feet felt leaden, her heart empty, too drained to cry. She didn’t bother to pull off her jeans before she crawled into bed. She stared up at the pink canopy above her head and knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, and she was right. Her mind raced with every dreadful detail of the past few hours. What her parents had said. What she’d said, and how nothing ever changed. And no matter how hard she tried to avoid thoughts of Nick, her mind turned again and again to him. She remembered his hot touch, the cool silky texture of his hair through her fingers, and the taste of his skin. She closed her eyes and could practically feel his warm wet mouth on her breasts and lower. She didn’t know why she’d let him do those things to her. She’d had enough previous experience with him to know he could pass for pleasant one minute and turn mean as a snake the next. So why Nick Allegrezza of all people?

Delaney punched her pillow and turned on her side. Maybe because he’d always been so free, and he’d always fascinated her with his heavenly face and wild hellion ways. Maybe because he was so beautiful he took her breath away, and tonight he’d made her feel like maybe she was beautiful too. He’d looked at her like a man who wanted to make love to a woman. He’d touched her as if he wanted her. But it had all been a lie. An illusion, and she’d been a naive fool.

I’ll give you something better than love, he’d said. I’m going to make you come. Why he’d chosen that particular method she didn’t know. But he couldn’t have chosen anything more humiliating if he’d had years to plan it. He’d stripped her naked while he’d remained clothed. He’d touched her all over, and she’d never even gotten a glimpse of his bare chest.

Her only consolation was that no one knew, not even Henry, exactly what had happened on the hood of Nick’s Mustang. And unless Nick spoke of it, no one would ever know. Maybe her mother was wrong. Maybe no one would talk about it.

But Gwen had only been wrong about the amount of time it would take for the gossip to reach her. It was noon, not ten, the next day when Lisa called and told Delaney that someone had seen her and Nick at the Charm-Inn in the nearby city of Garden. Another had them running buck naked through Larkspur Park and having sex on the kiddie slide. And yet in a third, she and Nick had been sighted in the alley behind the liquor store, drinking tequila shooters and going at it in the backseat of his car.

Suddenly being sent away to college didn’t seem so bad. The University of Idaho wasn’t Delaney’s first choice, but it was four hours from Truly. Four hours from her parents and their tight control. Four hours from the gossip blowing through town like a hurricane. Four hours from ever having to lay eyes on Nick or any member of his family.

No, maybe the U of I wouldn’t be so horrible after all.

“If you get good grades and behave yourself,” Henry told her on the drive to Moscow, “maybe we’ll lighten your class load next year.”

“That would really be great,” she’d said without enthusiasm. Next year was twelve months away, and she was sure she’d do something in the interim to displease Henry. But she would try. Just like she always did.

She tried for one month, but her first taste of real freedom went straight to her head, and she pulled straight Ds her first semester. She lost her virginity to a wide receiver named Rex and got a job waitressing at Ducky’s Bar and Grill, which was more bar than actual grill.

The money from her job gave her even more freedom, and when she turned nineteen that February, she quit school all together. Her parents had been livid, but she didn’t care anymore. She moved in with her first boyfriend, a weightlifter named Rocky Baroli. She sought higher education reading Rocky’s incredible pecs and adding up how many straight shots she could consume at the all-night parties she attended off campus. She learned the difference between a Tom Collins and a vodka Collins, between imported and home-grown.

She’d taken her new independence and she’d run with it. She’d grabbed hold with both hands and taken a great big bite, and she was never going back. She’d lived as if she had to experience everything at once, before her freedom was snatched away from her. Whenever she thought back on those years, she knew she was lucky to be alive.

The last time she’d seen Henry, he’d tracked her down with the sole purpose of dragging her back home. By then she’d dumped Rocky and had moved into a basement apartment in Spokane with two other girls. Henry had taken one look at the garage sale furniture, overflowing ash trays, and collection of empty booze bottles, and ordered her to pack her clothes. She’d refused and the confrontation had turned ugly. He’d told her if she didn’t get in his car, he would disown her, forget she was his daughter. She’d called him a controlling pompous son of a bitch.

“I don’t want to be your daughter anymore. It’s too exhausting. You were always more dictator than father. Don’t ever hunt me down again,” were the last words she’d spoken to Henry.

After that, whenever Gwen called her on the telephone, she made sure Henry was never home. Her mother visited Delaney occasionally in whichever city she happened to be living, but of course Henry never came with her. He’d been true to his word. He’d disowned Delaney completely, and she’d never felt so free-free of his control, free to screw up her life with abandon. And sometimes she really screwed up, but in the process, she also grew up.

She’d been free to drift from state to state and job to job until she figured out what to do with her life. She’d finally figured it out six years ago when she enrolled in beauty school. After the first week, she’d known she’d found her niche. She loved the tactile sensations and the whole process of creating something wonderful right before her eyes. She had the freedom to dress outrageously if she wanted to, because there was always someone a little bolder than herself.

It may have taken Delaney longer than most to settle on a career, but at last she’d found something she was good at and loved to do.

Being a stylist gave her the freedom to be creative. It also gave her the freedom to move when she began to feel trapped in one place, although she hadn’t felt claustrophobic in a while.

Not until a few months ago when Henry had flexed his muscle one last time and left that appalling will, controlling her life once again.

Delaney picked up her boots and headed into the bedroom. She flipped on the light and tossed her boots toward the closet. What was wrong with her? What would make her kiss Nick out on a crowded dance floor in spite of their sordid past? There were other available men around. True, some were married or divorced with five kids, and none of them were as fine as Nick, but she didn’t have a painful past with other men.

Nick the snake. That’s who he was, like that big python with the mesmerizing eyes in The Jungle Book, and she was just one more helpless victim.

Delaney looked at herself in the mirror above her dresser and frowned. Maybe if she weren’t so lonely and aimless she wouldn’t be so susceptible to Nick’s hypnotic charms. There had been a time in her life when aimlessness had been her goal. Not anymore. She was living in a town she didn’t want to live in, working in a salon with no real intentions of success. Her only goals were to survive and aggravate Helen. Something had to change, and she had to change it.