Page 33 of Keepsake
Her eyes searched me, and I didn’t have a clue what they were looking for. Her gaze landed on my mouth, and I felt myself swallow roughly. The moment pulled taut between us, like a rubber band stretched and ready to release its built-up tension.
Kiss her, my heart prodded, and I wanted to obey. But a kiss wasn’t what she needed just now. So, acting on some instinct I didn’t know I had, I tugged her by the hand until she landed half on my chest. Then I wrapped an arm around her back and just held her instead.
And, as they wrote in Genesis, it was good.
Lark burrowed closer to me. She tucked her nose into my neck and sighed. I had to remind myself to breathe. My heart was wailing against my ribs like a hammer, and goosebumps broke out on my skin from wanting so badly to kiss her. But it wasn’t to be. And the way her body relaxed against mine was my reward—a token of my accomplishment.
A few of her demons had fled the room, and that was all that mattered.
We lay there awhile, not saying anything. The stress I’d caused by making her talk was gone now. And I loved the warmth of her curves against my body. I’d never held anyone like this. And soft brush of her breath on my cheek made me realize what I’d been missing all these years.
This.
My mind drifted, until Lark suddenly asked me a question. “What crime did you commit?”
“What?” I was too drunk on happiness to understand the question.
“When you got thrown out of your home in Wyoming? I’ve been wondering for a week. And you made me talk. So…”
Oh. Well, heck. The girl had a point.
“You don’t have to tell me. But I just can’t figure out why they’d toss you of all people.”
The compliment was indirect, but it lit me up inside. “It’s funny, but even after I got caught, I didn’t think they’d actually toss me, until the very moment they did.”
“Why not?”
“I was a really good worker, kept my head down.”
“You? Nah.”
I chuckled, and she giggled into my neck. Best feeling ever. I don’t know why this didn’t feel weird. Maybe it was the fact that it was the middle of the night, but holding her felt like the most natural thing ever. “Okay, they were pretty lucky to have me. I thought they knew that. It’s just human nature—everybody thinks the bad things won’t happen to them, you know?”
When she spoke, it was in a voice so low I almost couldn’t hear. “I do know, as a matter of fact.”
That’s right, she did. I gave her back a rub, enjoying the sturdy feel of her body under my palm. “Well, so do I. And when my number came up, it had to do with a girl.”
“Ah,” Lark sighed. “Like Isaac and Leah? You loved her.”
“Nope,” I said quickly, because it was true. “We were friends, though. Her father died around the same time that mine did. Our mothers remarried to a pair of cousins. Each of these men had five wives by the time I left.”
“Yikes,” she hissed. “What a household that must have been.”
I was used to this idea, but I’d watched enough faces to know that everyone else found the family structure on the compound incredibly weird. I closed my eyes, trying to picture my mothers’ house the way it was just before I left. The memory got a little rustier all the time. “Yep. That’s a story for another time. Anyway, Chastity was sixteen, and I was nineteen. She…” I’d never told this story, except to Isaac.
Lark lifted her head to look down at me. “She what?”
Good thing she couldn’t see me blushing in the dark. “She liked to fool around with me. She’d come into the garage when I was working alone.”
“Oh…” Lark said quietly. “Somehow I thought this story was going in a different direction.”
“Nope!” I said, then laughed. “Pretty boring story about teenagers getting caught in the back seat of a car.”
It had been a stupid risk to take, but I was young and horny. I didn’t hear the deacon enter the garage with my father. I was too busy making out, my hand up the girl’s skirt. It was the first time I’d dared to touch her. I’d wanted sex so badly that I wouldn’t have heard a tornado coming. And a tornado might have been less life-changing.
The car door had suddenly flown open and the shouting began.
“An hour after they caught us, I had deep wounds on my backside from the horsewhip. And then they dumped me by the side of the road.”
