Читать книгу The Pregnant Bride - Crystal Green, Crystal Green - Страница 9

August, sixteen years earlier

“D o you love me, Nick?” Meg Thornton asked, batting her eyelashes up at him as she leaned against his chest.

Fourteen-year-old Nick Cassidy felt his throat close up. They were hiding from the vile Chad Spencer behind a bank of rocks, wedged into the cool crevices, shaded from the Kentucky summer sun. In the distance, a riot of adolescent voices cut the air.

There he was. Chad, the pretty boy.

They were both breathing hard, and Nick could feel Meggie’s twelve-year-old heart tripping against his arm. He moved his face away from the strawberry-tart scent of her hair. This felt weird, shielded from everyone else, huddled alone with Meggie.

As the voices drew nearer, she looked up at him with those big green eyes. Eyes like the center of a marble, clear and cool. Something to keep from the other kids after you tucked it into your pocket.

Nick had no idea what to say to Meggie. He didn’t want to hurt the only kid in Kane’s Crossing who treated him like a human being. And as if the youngsters weren’t bad enough, the adults here—except for his new foster family and Meggie’s aunt—also treated him like yesterday’s trash. As if they could judge him after he’d lived here for only a year. Bunch of jerks.

Meggie sighed as she sat up, brushing at her fairy-wing-colored skirt, probably so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

Man, he hoped he hadn’t made Meggie mad. With the way her eyes had gone all puppy-dog sad, Nick knew he’d said something wrong.

He tore a piece of grass from the ground and stuck it between his teeth. “Don’t get all mushy on me, okay?”

“It’s all right.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Meggie tilt her red head into the waning sunlight, the fading colors warming her face under a caramel-hued mask.

Town legend had it that when she visited her aunt in Kane’s Crossing every summer, she looked more and more like a Gypsy, with her flared skirts and corkscrew-wild hair. No wonder some kids called Meggie a “witch.” Not that she cared. She and her aunt Valentine, living in that creepy house on the hill, just laughed at the townsfolk.

“I hope Chad Spencer doesn’t find us. I’m sick of his nasty talk,” Meggie said.

Nick’s hands fisted against his secondhand jeans. “No worries, Meggie,” he said. Footsteps stampeded on the bank above their heads, making his body tense.

A sharp laugh cut the air. Nick peered up, seeing a shadow crouched on the ridge above their rocks.

Chad Spencer’s words flew at them like stinging stones. “Aren’t you guys gonna French or something? Or doesn’t the foster-trash kid even know how to open his mouth?” A chorus of mean-spirited giggles followed.

Meggie narrowed her eyes, dying to burn Chad with a comeback, no doubt. But Nick shot her a silencing glance. Spencer’s beef was with him; the bully just wanted to make himself look good in front of her.

“Bug off,” he said, using a glare he’d been practicing just for a moment like this.

“Oo-oh, so he can manage to form a word or two.” Chad moved slightly, granting a slice of sunlight access to his golden hair. His royal-blue eyes glowed from the shade of his gelled bangs, and his turned-up alligator shirt collar lent him the plastic air of a Pez dispenser. “Are you tough enough to play Double Dare?”

Nick rose to his feet, holding out his hand to help up Meggie. She accepted the gesture, and the two of them stood, united, against their common nemesis. He hoped his silence was answer enough for King of the Creeps.

Chad stood, too. “If you want to prove how tough you are, meet me at Chaney’s Drugstore tonight at nine o’clock. We’ll see if your attitude matches my left hook.”

He turned and tossed a smug smile over his shoulder at Meggie.

After the group left, Meggie touched his arm, her eyes holding all the concern in the world. “You’re not going tonight. Come over to watch videos with me.”

Nick appreciated her easy-way-out alternative. Not many girls her age would understand a guy’s need to save face.

But deep in Nick’s heart, he knew where he’d have to be tonight. Facing Chad Spencer. Proving he wasn’t just some poor little foster kid who had no business in Kane’s Crossing.