Hidden Deep (16 page)

“Look at you,” he whispered. “I wish you could see the way you look at me. I wish—”

I silenced him with my lips, making my own wish come true. Lad responded immediately to my kiss, one of his hands slipping beneath my hair to grasp my nape gently. With his other arm he pulled me on top of him and even closer against him, though lying together in the hammock as we were, our bodies were already tightly aligned.
This
was the intimacy I wanted. And Lad obviously craved it too. As he kissed me again and again, his arms crushed me to him—it felt like he would have absorbed me if he could have.

Within minutes our kisses had grown deeper, harder, and I was lost to the sensation. I was fully clothed, but heat and electricity flowed back and forth between us like there was no barrier, making it impossible for me to stay still. It seemed all the nerves in my body were strung tight. I’d never felt this alive, and yet my body was also heavy and weak, completely under the power of Lad’s mouth and hands. I squirmed on top of him, driven to seek a more perfect fit, a more satisfying closeness with him.

His hand gripped my hip and held me still. “Ryann. Stop. We have to stop.” He sounded winded, his breaths heavy and fast, matching his heartbeat against my chest.

“No we don’t,” I whispered, going in for another kiss. “It’s okay. We’re together now.”

His grip grew tighter, more desperate. “Please—don’t try to talk me into anything.” His soft laugh was a sound on the edge of pain. “You have no idea how close I am to agreeing to
whatever
you suggest.”

“Good,” I said with a grin, arching into him. “I like getting my way.”

Our lips met again briefly, but Lad broke the contact and leapt out of the hammock, leaving me swinging there alone.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I should tell you a little more about… how it is where I come from regarding… coupling.”

I sat up, letting my feet touch the ground to steady the hammock. “Okay.”

He paced slowly around the small clearing. “Well, you know how I told you about there being a point of no return?”

“Right. It’s a permanent decision—once you get married, you can’t be separated or you’ll transform and have a permanent mark.”

He nodded. “You’ve got it mostly right. But… it doesn’t become permanent at the point of marriage.” He stopped moving. “Ryann… if we were to ever keep going with what we started today,” he gestured toward the hammock. “… take things to their natural conclusion… that’s when it would happen. We can’t have sex unless you’re really, really sure you want to be with me… for a lifetime. Because that’s it for me. If you were to change your mind at any point…”

“Oh,” I said, finally understanding why Lad always cut off our making out just when things were getting good. I was actually relieved. “So then, it’s not only me—it isn’t easy for
you
to stop, either.”

He barked a short laugh, though his face looked more pained than amused. “No. It is definitely
not
easy. It gets more and more difficult all the time, in fact.”

I got up from the hammock and took Lad’s hand. “Because you like me?”

He gave me an adoring smile and laced his fingers with mine. “
Yes
, because I like you, among other reasons. Come on—it’s getting late—I should take you home.”

I knew from his tone I wouldn’t be finding out what those
other reasons
were—not today. We walked together hand-in-hand toward my house. I was already feeling a sense of let-down at the thought of being apart from him tonight.

“Hey, why don’t you come in when we get to my house? There’s no one there. You could stay for awhile. We could watch some TV, or listen to music, or…” I was babbling now as we walked because my mind was racing through all the exciting and frightening possibilities of being alone in my house with Lad. It might put a strain on the no-sex-before-lifetime-commitment-policy, but—

He stopped abruptly and held up his palm, a warning to be quiet. I looked around. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He closed his eyes, listening to something.

“Someone’s coming. Several people. Be very still. Maybe they’ll change direction and not even see us,” he whispered. After a few seconds he shook his head. “No. They’re coming right this way. They’ll be in sight within minutes.”

“It’s probably some neighbors. Our property’s posted against trespassing, but they know
they’re
welcome to come walking out here anytime.”

I studied Lad in his strange attire. To me he was magnificent, but any casual onlooker would instantly realize he wasn’t just some country boy out for a nature hike. It would be simpler for him to stay out of sight.

“You go climb a tree or something,” I suggested glibly. “If they do come this way, I’ll say a quick hello, they’ll be on their way, and so will we.”

Lad’s expression tightened. He started backing away, holding out one hand to me. “Come with me,” he urged.

“No. No way. It’s one thing to climb a tree like a drugged caterpillar and another to have you yank me up like a parachutist who’s just pulled the ripcord. No thank you. I’ll stay right here on terra firma.”

He was still standing there.

“I’ll be fine. Go!” I shooed him away with my hands. Lad finally turned and disappeared into the thick timberland. I watched him go, and when I turned back around, I saw the group approaching. They were not neighbors.

Uneasiness rippled through my stomach when I realized who they were—Casey Culpepper, the camouflage-obsessed boy from school, and two other men. I recognized Casey by his unusual haircut, buzzed short all over except for one long piece hanging in the back like a tail, a style my mom said was popular a few decades ago. Somehow it was a perfect fit for him.

He hung out with kind of a rowdy crowd and was on the principal’s short list whenever the boys’ bathroom smoke detector went off at school. With him was his cousin, Jared. I’d seen him a few times at one of the town’s two gas stations, working in the garage. The other guy I’d never seen before. He looked closer to Jared’s age than Casey’s. Maybe older. He broke into a wide leering grin and spoke first as they approached.

“Well, hey sweet thing. What’s a little bit like you doing way out here all alone?” Another sickening wave hit my middle at his tone, and I noticed then that all three of them carried hunting rifles. And bottles.

It was too late to reconsider my decision not to go with Lad. A fast trip up a tree was looking pretty darned good right now. But, that being out of the question, I decided the best strategy was to walk directly toward the guys, pass confidently by, and go on my way as quickly as possible. They’d have no interest in stopping to chat with a girl they barely knew. I headed toward them, and before our paths crossed, veered into the underbrush to give them a wide berth, ignoring the thorns grabbing at my bare legs as I tromped through the wiry vines there.

“Hello.” I raised my arm in a stiff wave and tried to seem nonchalant.

Casey sidestepped into my intended path. I had to stop or run right into his chest. “Hey… I know you. Ryann, right? Hey, Jared, Andy, this is Ryann. She’s a
good
girl,” he added with a boozy laugh.

“Ooh hoo—a good girl? I haven’t seen one of them in so long, I forgot what they look like,” Jared said, laughing more loudly than was called for.

Andy appraised me slowly. “Well, I have, but when I get done with them, they ain’t such good girls no more.” He sneered, grabbing his crotch. They all roared with laughter.

I’d made a critical mistake not going with Lad. Couldn’t he see or hear what was going on? Maybe he hadn’t spent enough time around guys like these to realize the amount of trouble I was in—they weren’t exactly a library crowd.

Maybe Lad was so reluctant to expose himself and his people to discovery he
couldn’t
intervene. If he didn’t make a move soon, I’d have to. I planned to make a break for it, hoping my sobriety and adrenaline level would give me some chance of outrunning the three of them.

But as they stood staring at me, snickering and taking swigs from their bottles, a new emotion started replacing my fear. Who did these idiots think they were, threatening me on my own family’s land?

I raised my voice. “All right now. You all just move on. This land is clearly posted, and you’re trespassing.”

The guys looked at each other and erupted in drunken laughter. Casey actually snorted.

“Awwww, come on now, Ryann. We were trying to be friendly.” His insincere tone and the resulting amusement from the other two only increased my anger and my inadvisable bravado.

“I mean it, you drunk fools. From the looks of things I wouldn’t be surprised if y’all were the ones who shot that deer on my land and left it to rot. You get out of here right now, and
maybe
I won’t call the sheriff and tell him I saw you here.”

I knew my last words were a stupid mistake as soon as they left my hot-headed mouth. The laughter was gone. The guys gave each other sideways glances, and Casey started to move around agitatedly.

“What are we gonna do now?” He directed his whining question at Jared, but Andy was the one who answered.

“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do,” he snarled. He moved slowly toward me, and the other two nervously followed his lead, shifting their positions to form a loose triangle around me. “We’re gonna teach this good little girl some manners. She’s kinda short on Southern hospitality.”

The other two tittered with nervous giggles. Casey’s eyes darted from one to the other of his friends and then back to me.

“You just back off!” I yelled. Then, lowering my voice, I said, “Look, if you’ll go right now—I promise not to tell anyone about any of this. We’ll all go on our way.”

Ignoring my words, Andy continued to advance. He didn’t believe me or he didn’t care. He had no intention of going anywhere.

Time’s up
.

My toes bit into the earth, I made my move, breaking to the side to dash away, but he sprang into motion as well, darting his hand out to lock around my wrist. I felt his filthy blunt fingernails digging into my skin as he jerked me back to him.

“Gotcha!” He laughed maniacally, having fun.

The smell of his liquor-soaked breath in my face made me gag. “Please…” I sobbed.

Anarchy erupted then with an otherworldly roar. Something big slammed into Jared and Casey, knocking them into one another with a crash of skulls. Andy reacted with a startled shout, shoving me away from him with such force I landed hard on my back and lost my breath in a painful rush. In one motion he raised his rifle and fired.

The gunshot rang through the woods, hurting my ears, leaving total silence in its wake. I lay on the ground stunned and struggling to breathe.

“Oh hell,” Andy muttered. He stood frozen, looking at the target he’d taken down. He seemed to have forgotten all about me. A minute later, he turned and ran into the woods, leaving me alone with his companions. I lifted my head cautiously, looking for them. I spotted them sprawled in a moaning heap about fifteen yards away.

A few feet to the right of them another crumpled form lay motionless in the bramble. Every cell of my body went cold in an instant.

“No! No, no, no, please no… oh sweet Jesus, no, no, no." I got to my feet and stumbled toward the nightmare vision. When I reached Lad, I fell sobbing to my knees beside his still body.

“Oh my God… no, please, Lad… Lad,” I begged.

The amount of blood covering his torso was staggering. The sight was more terrifying than anything I could’ve ever imagined. I didn’t know how a person could lose that amount of blood and still be alive, but I had to hope beyond desperate hope that he was.

I had no first aid knowledge whatsoever. Aping every medical drama I’d ever seen on television, I felt Lad’s neck for a pulse and drew my hand away in shaking frustration, unable to locate one. I had to get help for him. Knowing I couldn’t lift him, I tried anyway, planning I guess to miraculously carry him through the woods. He groaned in agony when I moved him, and I was almost delirious with relief to hear some evidence of life. I lowered his shoulders back to the ground.

“Lad… I’m here. You’re going to be all right. Don’t worry. I’m going to help you.”

I pressed a quick kiss to his damp forehead and leapt to my feet, turning one way and then another. I screamed in the direction Andy had fled, though he was most likely past earshot already.

“Help! Come back! He’s dying—you have to help me. You coward—you come back here right now!” I screamed it so loudly my throat was seared. It was pointless. He wouldn’t help me, even if he could hear my voice.

Using my phone to call 911 was hopeless. I had little to no coverage out here. Worse, Deep River had only one ambulance, and it would’ve taken the paramedics at least thirty minutes to cross town from the county hospital and make their way down the winding back roads out to Grandma Neena’s house.

Even if they could’ve defied the laws of physics and made it there sooner, I had no hope of describing my location in the woods. I’d simply followed Lad, not really knowing where he was leading me, and we’d covered a lot of ground today. The ambulance crew would be lucky to find us by morning, if ever.