Lucky Penny (8 page)

“There she is.” Troy approached me as everyone around us mingled. “How are you enjoying camp so far? I’ve been hearing good things about you.” He smiled, and I felt myself shrinking into my hoodie not used to such compliments.

“Of course, you have. She’s a natural.” Blake slung an arm around Troy’s neck and smiled directly at me. “Right, Penny?”

I nodded, unsure if there was a hidden meaning in his words.

“We change lives, but I never thought we would bring together two lost souls either. It’s a beautiful day, people. Live. Love. And be happy.” Troy clapped Blake on the back and lifted his head at me before leaving us.

The girls had long abandoned me to sit with their friends—new and old—and Marissa was busy talking to Liam. She denied there was anything between them, but I’d caught her checking him out on more than one occasion.

“Come on.” Blake motioned to the lake in the distance. Without thinking, I rose and followed him.

“Won’t anyone notice we’re gone?” I asked remembering Tina’s warning about counselors taking their relationships too far.

“We’re just talking. It’s fine. You can trust me, Penny.”

I was transported back eleven years to a time when a broken girl had given her trust to a boy with grass-stained jeans and unlaced chucks.

So much had happened since then.

“So Troy is an interesting guy,” I said trying to evade the memories flooding my mind.

“He’s great. He really gets the kids and the work. He’s just a little free spirited. I think he and Tina were hippies back in the day.”

“He called us lost souls? What did he mean?”

Blake swept a hand through his tousled hair and blew out a long breath. “I’ve known Tina and Troy for a long time, and they know some of our story.”

Something flashed in Blake’s eyes, causing me to tense, and my mind immediately went to a place I didn’t want to remember.

Ever.

“Hey, nothing like that,” Blake said reassuring me. “They just know we were in a group home together and haven’t seen each other in a real long time. Too long. I have a confession to make…” I tugged the zipper of my hoodie, suddenly feeling a chill despite the adrenaline coursing through me. “I knew you were coming.”

My feet stopped dead. “What?” I asked sure I must have heard him wrong. “What do you mean you knew I was coming?”

“I stay in touch with Tina and Troy throughout the year. When Troy had his operation back in the spring, Tina asked me to step in and help her vet the applications. I saw your name and read your application. I instantly knew it was you.”

He knew.
He had acted as surprised to see me that first night as I was to see him.

As if he could hear my thoughts, Blake went on. “I saw you across the fire, and it was like I’d been sucker-punched. I guess I wasn’t as prepared to see you as I thought.”

Well, that explained some of his shock, but it still didn’t make me feel great that he knew all this time. Blake started to walk again, but when I didn’t follow, he doubled back.

“Shit, Penny, I know there’s a lot we still haven’t talked about but just give me a chance. Please.”

We hadn’t talked at all. We had been polite and skirted around one another, and then tonight, there had been the moment across the fire, but we had yet to say
any
of the things we needed to say.

For a long time after Blake left the Freemans, I imagined what I would say if I ever saw him again. I wanted answers. Where did he go? How could he leave me behind? Derek and Marie refused to tell me anything; they said it was confidential. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Amy took great pleasure in taunting me. She said I was too clingy and Blake had requested the move to get away from me. I knew that wasn’t true; Blake loved me, he’d told me only the night before I came home from my summer job at the local store to find him gone. But Amy did have a point because he was gone, and I was still there wondering what in the hell had happened.

That question haunted me for a very long time. But now he was here, standing next to me, asking—no, pleading—for a chance to explain.

“Penny…” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. Although it sparked off something in me, all I could do was nod. There was never a choice to make, not where Blake Weston was concerned. My head might have learned to hate him. To blame him. But my heart never forgot him. Never forgot the love it once felt for him.

Still
felt for him.

The moon’s reflection illuminated Blake’s face as I stared at him with my jaw hanging open. “I still can’t believe they found you. After all that time.”

“Yeah. Apparently, I was one of the lucky ones. Uncle Anthony hadn’t spoken to my mom for years, so he didn’t even know I existed until he moved back to Columbus and hired a PI to search for her. His search led him to Lancaster which led him to me.”

I closed my mouth trying to make sense of everything, but one thing still didn’t add up. “So he found you and petitioned the courts?”

Blake nodded.

“Okay, but why the sudden disappearance? And why didn’t you know about any of this beforehand? Surely, someone should have told you that you had family who wanted you?”

“Uncle Ant knows a lot of the right people, and he pulled some strings to make it happen quickly. I wanted to say goodbye. I fought with them so hard, Penny, but they said it was for the best. I was confused and angry, and my head felt like it was going to explode…” Blake dropped his head. “And as selfish as it was, a little part of me was relieved I was finally getting free from them. From that hell. I thought I’d get out, get my shit together, and come back for you.”

I understood that part. I did. But Blake’s honesty stirred something in me. For as much as I wanted to get the hell away from Derek and Marie, I couldn’t imagine ever leaving without him.

Ever.

“You left me all alone in there.” Tears streamed down my face. “Do you know what it was like to come home that day and find you gone? To have Derek and Marie revel in the opportunity to hurt me even more than they already had? They wouldn’t tell me a word. No one would. Nothing. You just disappeared into thin air.”

The force of my sobs wracked my body, and I had to grip the rickety bench to keep myself upright. I was foolish to let Blake’s earlier playfulness distract me. Our past had been staring me in the face ever since I laid eyes on him because
he
was my past. A reminder of everything I’d gone through. Everything I’d survived.

“Wait, what?” Blake’s head whipped up, and now, he was the one looking at me with utter shock.

I stared at him in disbelief. Surely, he didn’t expect me to bare myself like that again?

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Who?” I asked confused.

“Derek and Marie? They didn’t give you my letter?”

Letter?

Realization dawned on Blake’s face, and he cursed something under his breath. “Of course, they didn’t. Fuck.”

Wiping the tears away from my eyes, I said, “Can you please tell me what is going on?”

He looked at me with such sadness that, even though I had thought it impossible, another piece of my heart broke. They say the eyes are a window to the soul, and sitting there in front of a lake just as we did in another time, Blake was baring his to me.

So entranced in the pained looked on his face, I missed his fingers inching closer to mine until they were brushing. My eyes darted to where our hands rested between us. Slowly and carefully, Blake entwined his fingers in mine as if he thought I might shatter under his touch.

My heart began to pound in my chest. Blake was touching me, and I was freaking out. But not because his touch repulsed me… or scared me… or hurt me.

I was terrified because it didn’t.

Age 13

“I
can’t believe he’s gone.” I kicked my feet into the dirt and dropped my head.

“You knew it was going to happen, Blake. Bennett finally turned eighteen.”

I sighed. “I know, I know. It’s just he was the best.”

Penny nudged me with her shoulder and curled one of her small hands around mine. “I know. He looked out for all of us. But you’re right. It won’t be the same without him.”

I looked down at our joined hands. She was always grabbing my hand and linking our fingers. I wondered if it made her feel all funny inside the way it did me. If it did, her face didn’t give her away, and I was too chicken shit to ask her why she was always doing it.

One day, not long after she moved into the Freeman group home, it had just happened. We had risked sneaking out to No Man’s Land one night, just the two of us, and we almost were caught. Penny was so scared that she grabbed a hold of my hand and held on for dear life.

It kind of became Penny's thing after that. Now, it was more like
our
thing.

Amy had to take a cheap shot whenever she spotted Penny’s hand in mine, but Penny just shrugged it off. According to her, there was nothing wrong with holding hands with your best friend.

Best friend.

When Penny first called me that last year, I had just stared at her blankly. She thought of
me
as her best friend? The messy-haired kid with the quick temper and hand-me-down chucks. My last best friend had been a one-eyed stuffed bear called Frederick when I was seven. Sure, I had Bennett and one or two other friends during my time in foster care, but no one had ever called me their best friend.

No one.

But Penny was a girl, and boys and girls weren’t usually best friends, were they?

“Hey, where’d you go on me?” Penny stared at me wide-eyed, her long hair spilling in front of her face. When I blinked out of my trance, she grinned at me.

“Just zoned out. Come on, let’s head inside.”

“Already? Can’t we stay out here a little longer?”

I shook my head. “You know the rules, Pen. Chores before dinner and we're already late.”

“Fine, fine, lead the way.”

“Blake, Penny, where have you been?”

Marie was waiting for us as we entered the house. Arms folded over her chest, her face was beet red and her eyes were narrowed. When neither of us replied, it turned another shade darker, like the blood vessels might burst at any second. “Well?”

“Sorry, Marie. It was my fault. I wanted to stay in the yard. It’s such a nice day, and well, I wasn’t ready to come inside.”