Independence Day (9 page)

Without thinking, Gabriella grabbed the phone and punched in 911.

N
ICK FELT
more alive than he had in a long time.

After a slow start the evening had turned out to be fun. Now there was a word he hadn’t used recently. Chessie was right. He’d needed to loosen up a little. And loosen up he had with this new, sexy woman. They’d danced and flirted as if they’d just met. And, as one of the last couples to leave, they’d closed down the pops concert. Not in an administrative capacity, but as two people who didn’t want the evening to end.

“Turn here!” At the light Chessie pointed down the Sea Road. “Let’s ride around the beach.”

Turning the Volvo, he glanced in her direction. She had her window open and was letting her hand glide on the soft night air. As she rested her head back against the seat, her short tousled curls played about the smile on her lips. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen her so relaxed. And happy.

“Did you have a good time tonight?”

“You’re not supposed to ask me. Not on our first date.” Her voice was light and teasing. “I’m supposed to tell you.”

“Well?” He stroked her thigh under that silky dress and felt a jolt of longing.

She ran her hand lightly over his. “I had a terrific time tonight. Let’s run away together.”

That’s how he felt, too.

He followed the bend in the road and came out on the stretch where the beach was separated from the pavement by a ribbon of sidewalk and a low seawall.

“Oh, how beautiful!” Chessie exclaimed as the stars and the moon reflected off the ocean’s surface. “Pull over!”

“Do you want to get out and walk?” he asked as he turned off the ignition.

“No. I want to…park.” In the moonlight, she sent him a sultry look.

“As in…?”

“As in teenage-just-got-the-license park.” She flipped up the armrest, then slid across the front seat to snuggle next to him.

“On the first date?”

“As you said, I’m a girl who knows my way around a good time.”

“In the family sedan?”

“The parents will never know.”

He glanced at his watch.

“Not on this date, mister!” she exclaimed, pulling the watch from his wrist and tossing it in the back seat.

“You mean business.”

She giggled, then turned on the seat to face him. It was amazing how perfectly her body fit up against his. “I mean business.”

He slid the steering wheel up and the seat back.

“Mm,” she purred as she twirled a bit of his hair between her fingers. “That’s more like it.”

The moon shone through the open window, illuminating her face. With her silvered features and the short haircut, she didn’t quite look like his wife.

He didn’t feel quite like himself.

Tentatively, he kissed the corner of her mouth.

“Oh, no,” she murmured, sliding her hand behind his neck and pulling him to her. “Like this.”

She nipped his lower lip once before her kiss became passionate and deep and insistent. It was not a kiss to be dismissed as fun and games. It sent serious desire through his body.

He ran his hand over her hip. Over the swell of her bottom. The silky fabric of her dress felt like a second skin, and in the dark interior of the car, it felt as if she might have nothing on. He closed his eyes and groaned.

“I’ve been wanting to get you alone for a very long time,” she whispered huskily in his ear.

At that moment he thought he glimpsed a part of what she’d been trying to tell him with the laundry, with the picket sign. Of the need for intimacy.

He cupped her face in both his hands and held her so that he could look in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be.” She smiled. “Be mine.”

Words wouldn’t come. Instead, he pulled her to him in a kiss.

With it, Chessie felt a change in Nick.

For the first time in ages, he was with her, truly with her. In fact, she’d bet he wasn’t thinking at all,
but was humming on pure physical auto-pilot. And all because of her.

Oh, my, but he could kiss!

She felt light-headed. Perhaps it was the short haircut and the unaccustomed feel of the night air against her neck. Perhaps it was the teasing silk of her dress against her skin. More likely it was Nick’s undivided attention. He’d really seen her tonight, for the first time in a very long while. And now he wanted her.

Breathless, she pulled away, almost expecting to see a stranger next to her. But it was Nick. Handsome and strong and looking at her as if he could eat her alive.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, running his fingers down the deep vee of her neckline, trailing shivers of pleasure along her skin.

She demurred and shook her head as if to disagree.

“You can’t tell me you thought those guys were asking you to dance because they took pity on you.” Gently, as if in awe, he touched her hair. “You’re a knockout.”

“Thank you,” she said, feeling truly beautiful under his gaze. And powerful.

She leaned across his lap, buried her face in the curve of his neck. And felt him inhale sharply.

“Oh, no! I forgot about the dog bite!” She tried to shift her weight, but he held her tightly. “Does it hurt?”

He chuckled and the sound reverberated through his chest. “Honey, I’m feeling no pain.”

She began a gentle massage of his chest, moving
her hand in slow circles, lower and lower still until she slid her fingers between the buttons of his shirt just above his belt buckle and felt his warm skin. “What are you feeling?”

“I’m…”

She slid her fingers below his belt and felt the trickle of hair that dipped directly from his navel south.

“…feeling…”

“Yes?” She ran the flat of her palm over his erection.

“…like this.” Starting at her knee, he ran his hand between her thighs. Slowly. Under the fabric of her dress. Stopping just as his thumb grazed her panties.

“Are you wearing a thong?” Incredulity threaded his words.

“And if I am?”

“Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

With a shiver of anticipation, she unbuckled his belt…just as a light blinded her.

“You folks need to move along.” The gruff voice seemed to come from right in the car with them.

Her heart in her throat, Chessie started and hit the steering wheel with her elbow, sounding the horn.

“What the hell!” Nick raised his hand to shield his eyes from the brightness.

Chessie adjusted her skirt over her legs.

“Nick?” The voice behind the blinding light boomed with amusement. “Chessie?”

Now she noticed the flashing blue lights behind the Volvo.

“For the love of Mike, you’d think the two of you could take it home.” The police officer lowered his flashlight. It was George Weiss. Their neighbor. “Or at least get a hotel room.”

As Chessie quickly moved to the passenger seat, she noticed Nick’s unbuckled belt. She gave him a sharp nod.

Abruptly he shifted his hips away from the window. “Ow!” Apparently, as foreplay disappeared, so went the local anesthetic.

George laughed right out loud. “As if you two needed any more notoriety.”

“We were watching the moon rise,” Chessie explained sweetly.

“Among other things,” George added, apparently unable to restrain his mirth. “I’m going to give you kids my usual safe-sex lecture.” He dug into his pockets. “And these.” He handed Nick a couple packets of condoms.

“Save the lecture, George,” Nick muttered. “We’re heading home.”

“Don’t let me come back in an hour and find you here.” George grinned as if he were really enjoying this. “I’d have to write you up.”

“You’d love that.”

“I would. But if you keep your nose clean and get this girl home safely… I’ll restrict the report to Thursday night poker—”

The radio in the squad car crackled with urgency.

“Gotta run,” George said. “Sounds like they need back-up at the Surf Club. God, I hate drunks.” He thumped the side of the Volvo with the flat of his hand. “Drive safe now.”

Chessie suppressed a giggle. Nick’s face had been in shadow, so she’d been unable to read his mood. They’d been communing so exquisitely until George’s interruption. Would this development set them back?

“Whose idea was this?” he asked, turning the key in the ignition.

“Mine?”

“And a damned good one it was,” he declared as he put the car in gear and accelerated so quickly she swore the old Volvo left a patch of rubber. Right in front of officer George Weiss’s cruiser. Martha wasn’t going to let them live this down.

Nick extended his right arm. “Come here, woman.” He laughed. A deep, rich, heartfelt laugh.

Joyfully, she slid across the seat again and buckled up in the center. Then she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. The silence on the way home wasn’t from tension. It was from contentment. Life was good. If Nick could find humor in tonight’s turn of events, there was hope for them.

“You know,” he said at last, caressing her arm, “just because we’re changing venue, doesn’t mean the night has to end.”

“I like the sound of that.” Did she just say that? Dear Lord, give her strength. What was happening
to her no-sex diet? The husky tone of Nick’s voice wasn’t offering cookies. It was offering a deluxe hot fudge sundae.

“Besides, an officer of the law gave me these.” He pulled the condom packets out of his shirt pocket. “Now why would he do that if he didn’t mean for us to use—”

He stopped speaking so abruptly, Chessie sat bolt upright. They were about to turn in to their driveway, but another police car blocked their way. Nick pulled over to the side of the road. As he did, officer Ken Nadick got out of one side of the cruiser, and Gabriella got out of the other.

N
ICK COULDN’T BELIEVE
his eyes.

The kid getting out of the squad car didn’t look like his fourteen-year-old daughter. She looked like a hooker.

“What happened?”

“Gabby, are you okay?” Chessie was right behind him.

Silent and sullen, Gabriella made no move toward them.

“We picked her up with about a dozen other underage kids at the Surf Club,” Ken Nadick said.

“The Surf Club!” Chessie exclaimed. “You were supposed to be spending the night with—”

“Mom! I’ve already been read the riot act.” Gabriella started for the house, but Ken stopped her.

“Not so fast, young lady,” he said. “You’ve got a lot to explain to your parents. Later. But right now you’re going to stay while I tell them the facts as I know them. Then you can all start on the same page.”

Gabriella slouched against the squad car. Nick had seen that part-tough, part-scared look a hundred
times in his office. On other people’s kids. He’d hear her side of the story, as Ken said, later. With a heavy heart he turned to the officer who headed up the substance abuse program for the high school. “What do you know?”

“We got a 911 call from the Surf Club. Drug overdose. Turns into a drug bust with a bunch of underage drinkers as postscript.”

“I wasn’t drinking!” Gabriella protested.

With a severe look, Ken silenced her. “Your daughter had fake ID on her, but she passed the breathalyzer and the field sobriety test. I thought it best just to bring her home.”

“How did you get to the Surf Club?” Chessie turned to Gabriella, astonishment and hurt written on her face.

“You guys are going to have to work out the details,” Ken replied. “I’m sorry but it’s going to be a long night.” Opening the driver’s door of the cruiser, he nodded his head toward the Weiss’s house. “Consider yourself lucky. George had to follow his daughter to the hospital. She was the drug overdose.”

“Keri?” Tears welled up in Chessie’s eyes. “Gabriella—”

But their daughter had fled into the house. Chessie followed, leaving the two men in the driveway.

“Thanks, Ken,” Nick said. “I wasn’t looking for special treatment.”

“I wasn’t giving any,” Ken replied, getting into the squad car. “As I said, Gabriella was clean. She was just where she wasn’t supposed to be.”

An understatement if Nick had ever heard one. He headed into the house to get to the bottom of this mess.

Before he reached the kitchen, he heard Gabriella’s bedroom door slam.

“Unlock this door at once,” Chessie ordered from above.

He charged up the stairs. When he got to the top, Gabriella still hadn’t unlocked the door. “Open the door,” he said, trying to keep his anger in check. It was amazing how much easier it was dealing with other parents’ kids’ problems. “We’re going to talk.”

Silence.

“What’s she doing in there?” Chessie asked. “What’s she capable of?”

Yesterday he might’ve been able to give his wife an answer. Today he couldn’t. “If you don’t open this door, I will,” he threatened. God, he felt like kicking it down.

“Wait, Dad.” As if she read his thoughts, Isabel appeared from her room, a coat hanger in her hand. With the hook end, she jabbed the hole in the middle of the doorknob, releasing the lock.

He and Chessie pushed into Gabriella’s room at the same time.

Their daughter lay on her bed, her face buried in a pillow. He sat on one side, Chessie on the other. “Tell us what happened,” he said.

Gabriella didn’t respond.

“Gabby…” Chessie put a hand on Gabriella’s shoulder, but the girl jerked away.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” Nick insisted. “It’s time to own up.”

Gabriella rolled to a sitting position, then scooted back against the headboard as if she wanted to get as far away from her parents as possible. Thick black mascara smudged her eyes.

“You were supposed to be spending the night with Keri,” Chessie began. “What happened?”

“We got invited to hang out with Baylee and Margot.”

“How’d you get to the Surf Club?” Nick couldn’t believe he’d become one of the parents who lost track of his teenager.

“Mrs. Weiss drove us.”

“To the club?”

Gabriella refused to look him in the eye. “To Baylee’s.”

“And why didn’t you call your mother or tell us your change in plans? We both have cell phones.”

“Mrs. Weiss knows them. Knows their parents. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Obviously, it was. You still haven’t told us how you got to the Surf Club.”

“We walked.”

This was like pulling teeth, but he persisted. “From Baylee’s house?”

“No. Baylee’s dad drove us to Margot’s.”

“So far you’ve lied to us, to Mrs. Weiss and to Baylee’s dad, and you’re not even at the club.” He paused to let the full import of his words sink in. To
her mind or to his, he couldn’t be sure. “How did you get to the club from Margot’s?”

“We walked.”

“Where did you get fake ID?”

“Some guys.”

“Names?”

“I don’t know their names.”

She was lying. He knew it. His daughter was lying to his face.

“Where did Keri get the drugs?”

“I don’t know.”

Another lie.

“Where did you get these clothes?” Chessie broke in.

The clothes. Neither Chessie nor he would ever allow either girl out of the house in an outfit like that. Nick hated to think what the men at the club had thought of this girl-woman in those clothes.

Gabriella didn’t respond.

“Three questions you don’t know the answers to.” Nick rose from the bed. “We can wait. You’re grounded until you can tell us the whole story.”

“That’s so unfair!” Gabriella shouted. “I wasn’t drinking! I wasn’t doing drugs! I was just dancing!”

Nick looked at her buzz cut and the heavy makeup. The skimpy outfit. There was far more than dancing going on tonight. This was a girl—his girl—who stood on the threshold of womanhood.

“If everything was so innocent,” Chessie remarked, “why did you sneak behind our backs?”

Gabriella looked as if her mother had slapped her. “You have some nerve dissing me,” she muttered.

“I beg your pardon?” It was Chessie’s turn to look slapped.

“I just went dancing with my friends!” Gabriella yelled. “You’ve been acting all weird in public! Before strangers! You embarrassed me and Dad and Isabel! I didn’t do anything worse than you’ve been doing all week!”

She stopped suddenly as if she knew she’d stepped over the line.

Quietly, Chessie rose from the bed, her eyes glittering. “Gabriella, you are grounded until we get some answers…and until I get an apology from you. I’m going to call the hospital to see how Keri’s doing.”

She brushed past Nick as the first tear rolled down her cheek.

With one final look at his unrepentant daughter, Nick followed his wife. When had family life become this difficult?

As soon as her parents had gone downstairs, Isabel slipped into Gabriella’s room. Her sister was a mess, that was for sure.

“Go away,” Gabby said. “I don’t need any more grief.”

“I’m not here to give you grief. I thought you might want to talk.”

“Sure. So you can blab to Mom and Dad.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Isabel sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s just that I know you’d normally turn to Keri.”

“Oh, Izzy!” Gabriella threw herself on Isabel. “She’s got to be okay! She just has to be!”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. We got separated. When I finally found her in the restroom, she was so out of it. So hot. Like she had a fever.” Gabriella began to cry great gulping sobs as her story spilled out in ragged chunks. “I called 911. Now everyone’s gonna think I got the place raided. But it was Keri I was worried about.”

“Of course. You couldn’t have done anything else.” Isabel rubbed her sister’s back. “Gabby…how did Keri get the drugs?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think it was her boyfriend. Danny. Danny Aiken. Just before I found Keri, I saw him with some pills in his pocket.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police?”

“He was the one they busted. Caught him trying to flush the pills down a toilet. I figured they could put two and two together.” Gabriella flung herself on the bed. “I’m already dead meat for calling the cops.”

“Get a grip!” Isabel pulled her sister upright, looked her in the eyes. “If you haven’t figured it out already, that crowd is trouble.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like to always be on the outside.”

“Hello. I moved as many times as you did. I was the new kid, too.”

“Yeah, but you don’t need people. You stick to
yourself and your poetry. You don’t care what people say. Besides, in a year you’ll be away at college and out of here.”

Isabel flinched. That’s what she’d thought too. Once. Seemed like an eternity ago.

“God, Izzy, you’re so lucky. You’re getting out just in time, and I’m stuck here.” Gabriella groaned dramatically. “Mom and Dad are going to ruin my life.”

“Did you ever stop and think you might ruin theirs?”

Gabriella narrowed her eyes. “If only.”

“Don’t say what you don’t mean.” Isabel glanced over her shoulder. “Hey, I don’t know where they are right now or what they’re talking about, but I bet you put a bug in Dad’s ear about Mom. He’s not real happy with her lately, and you go and accuse her of setting a bad example.”

“I said she embarrassed us. I only said the truth. Deny it.”

Isabel couldn’t, but she needed to get her sister to see the bigger picture. “Well, we don’t need to draw attention to it. What do you want, Gabby? Mom and Dad to split up?”

Gabriella’s look was hard and cold. “All I can say is my friends who come from divorces don’t have their parents breathing down their necks all the time.”

“Seeing as how tonight turned out,” Isabel snapped, standing, “maybe you need your parents to breathe down your neck a little harder.”

“This conversation is over.” Gabriella rolled on her side.

“Fine.” Frustrated, Isabel stalked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Her parents’ door was open and a bedside light was on, but no one was there. Pausing on the landing to listen, she could hear them in the kitchen. It didn’t sound as if they were fighting. She went downstairs.

“Isabel,” Dad said when he saw her in the kitchen doorway. He and Mom were sitting at the table. They looked as if they’d been hit by a bus. “I thought you’d be in bed.”

“I’m not sleepy. Did you find out anything on Keri?”

Mom shook her head. “I called the hospital. They only release information to family members. No one’s home across the street, so we still don’t know anything.”

“We’ll go to the hospital tomorrow,” Dad said. “If she’s still there, she’ll be able to have visitors.”

Isabel fought back tears. It could have been Gabriella in that hospital. “I love you,” she blurted out.

“We love you, too,” Dad replied. “Now try to get some sleep.”

Isabel went upstairs, but she doubted she could even close her eyes. Things were so, so wrong. And she didn’t think she could fix them.

She went in to her bathroom, closed the door and locked it. After listening for any footsteps, she opened the medicine cabinet and reached for solace.

C
HESSIE STARED
at Nick across the kitchen table. “Considering what teenagers face today, how could you think this couldn’t happen to us?”

“Isabel never acted out.” All traces of the sensuous man she’d parked with at the beach were gone. “I guess I thought we’d found the formula.”

“There’s no formula. And Isabel isn’t the person Gabriella is.” Chessie frowned. She thought Nick would know this. “Isabel’s always been a loner whereas Gabriella needs people. Needs to belong.”

“But we’ve talked to both girls about risky behavior.”

“She wasn’t drinking. You heard Ken say she was clean. So in her mind she wasn’t engaged in risky behavior. She just wanted to be where her friends were.”

“She could’ve ended up where Keri is.”

How Chessie knew it. “But she’s not in the hospital. She’s safe. We need to focus on that.”

“How could she be so reckless?” Nick stood and began to pace.

“I think we know now that she can be. That she might be again if Keri’s situation doesn’t serve as a wake-up call. We need to keep the lines of communication open.”

“We need to keep a tighter rein.”

When she looked at him now, Chessie saw not Nick the father, but the administrator. At school, however, he presided over the same four years of adolescence—different kids, but the same maturation level. At home he couldn’t stop his girls from grow
ing up. And away. It had to hurt him more than her because control was such a part of who he was.

“We need to be watchful, yes,” she conceded, “but you can’t keep them in a bubble. They need to learn how to face life and its challenges. That’s what you try to teach them in school.”

“Chessie, our job as parents is to keep our kids safe.”

“No, Nick. Our job is to help them grow into independent adults.”

He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

“They need more structure.”

“They need guidance and help in making good choices, yes, but they need opportunities to spread their wings.”

“Spread their wings? You make it sound as if tonight was no big deal.”

“God, no! But I’m saying how we handle it is a bigger deal. We need to help Gabriella learn from this mistake.”

He rounded on her. “They’re teenagers. We’re the adults. Or we should be.”

“Oh, no.” An awful realization began to dawn on her. “You’re blaming yourself for not being home tonight.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I have a job. We have commitments. We can’t babysit them 24/7.”

“But you’re thinking we should have come right home after the pops concert.” She stood to face him. “You’re thinking we somehow behaved irresponsibly
by driving around the beach and taking a little extra time for ourselves.”

He didn’t answer.

“Nick?”

“We have to focus on the big picture.” He was stern now and unyielding. “We made a commitment to have a family. Until we’ve raised that family, we may have to put some of our needs on the back burner.”