Megan Hart - Lovely Wild

“She doesn’t know Billy Idol, Ryan.”

“Oh. Right.” Ryan nodded like he understood, but the quirk of his smile said he didn’t. Not really.

He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. He was her brother, Leon said, but there was nothing brotherly about the way he looked at her.

Mari wanted him like some girls wanted rock stars or movie stars or TV celebrities.

Later, when Leon had gone to bed and Mari was still in the kitchen scrubbing the floor because of the mess Ryan’s shoes had made, he found her. “Hey. What are you doing?”

She looked up at him. “Cleaning. I don’t like it to be dirty.”

“My dad makes you clean like that? Doesn’t he have a housekeeper?”

“I don’t mind.” It had never occurred to her that it was something to be ashamed of, taking care of Leon. After all, he’d taken care of her.

“Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be up late scrubbing the floor. You should be out having fun.” Ryan’s gaze had cut away from her before sneaking back like a dog looking to steal from the table.

The next time he came home with a pink T-shirt with a unicorn covered in sparkles on the front of it. It wasn’t a princess dress, but Mari would eventually wear it to shreds. He took her to the movies, which she hated, too dark, too loud, the chemical scent of the popcorn butter distasteful. He took her to a restaurant, and she liked that much better, especially when she got a giant sundae for dessert. Three days he spent at home, three days he spent teasing her into laughter and making her shine.

“You take care, kid,” he told her on the day he left and chucked her under the chin.

She watched him walk to the car, her hand raised in a half wave that was the best she could muster, considering the thought of him leaving her so soon was enough to make her want to curl in a ball beneath the blankets and cry.

A day later, he called the house to talk to her. Not to his father, who handed her the phone with a raised eyebrow, but no comment. Mari took the phone curiously, uncertain, but the moment she heard Ryan’s voice, everything that had seemed dark became light.

For two years, Ryan was there when she needed someone to talk to, though in truth she often did more listening than speaking. He taught her how to drive. Ryan was there when Leon didn’t understand what a young girl needed—pretty clothes, not dowdy uniforms. Trips to the park and the zoo and the mall instead of being kept at home and out of sight. Ryan was the one who told his father that Mari needed to be allowed to wear mascara, get her ears pierced, if she wanted to. To look and act like other girls her age, even if she’d grow up to be a different sort of woman. He was her champion, her advocate.

He was her prince.

And then, Leon died.

She was not surprised when it happened, though it was sudden. One moment he was sitting in front of the meatloaf she’d cooked for dinner, asking her about her studies—she was a month from finishing the homeschooling courses that would give her a GED—and the next he was facedown in the mashed potatoes. A few hours after that, the man who’d given her a life had lost his.

Death was nothing new to her. She’d seen it on the farm with chicks and puppies and kittens, and her grandmother, too. Some part of her had been waiting for Leon to abandon her since the day he’d taken her home. She wept, of course, at the loss. Leon had saved her...but he’d never been her savior, had he? Not really.

She had a prince for that.

The night before Leon’s funeral, Ryan came home late. Mari was waiting for him in the living room in front of the fireplace. She didn’t know about seduction, but it turned out she didn’t have to. She wanted him and now she had him.

Eight months later, they were married.

* * *

Beside her sleeping husband, Mari thinks of all this now. How some choices were made for her and some she’s made for herself, but that the whole of her life has led her to this man, this house, this space. This life. And it’s a good life, full of love and so much more than she’d ever have guessed she could have.

If Ryan says they need to go back, he must have a good reason. And if she trusts him, as she’s always done, then she also has to trust that everything will be all right. When he tells her he’s taking her home, he has no real idea of what that means to her and never has. She doesn’t want him to know. But she trusts Ryan as much as she loves him, and that means Mari will follow him wherever he thinks he needs to go.

Ryan is not the first man to rescue her, but Mari has always believed he would be the last.

TWELVE

IT WOULD’VE BEEN a total cliché for Kendra to hate her parents for this. They’d taken her away from her friends, the pool, all the stuff she’d been looking forward to this summer. Her riding lessons. She’d been planning to do the adult summer reading program for the first time, and it was a better one, because the little kids get stuff like coupons for Rita’s Italian Water Ice and Subway, but when you did the grown-up program you got entered for gift certificates to Amazon.com and places like that. She’d already put together her reading list, and though her dad had promised there’d be a library where they were going, Kendra knew it wouldn’t be the same.

She totally should’ve hated them. Her dad, because it had been his stupid idea. Her mom for going along with it the way she always did, not even asking any questions. Not even complaining. It would’ve been too easy to blame her parents for ruining her life when all it really meant was she had to spend a few months in some country town while her parents got their act together. That wasn’t life. That was just the summer.

It could’ve been worse.

Or maybe not, she thought as her mom at last pulled up in front of a peeling, white-painted farmhouse with a sagging front porch and windows like dead eyes. This looked pretty gross. They got out of the car at the same time as her dad and Ethan got out of his. Dad gave her and Mom a gigantic, toothy grin.

“Well? What do you think?”

“I think it stinks.” Ethan put a hand to his nose. “Pee-yew.”

“It’s a skunk,” Mom said in a quiet voice. “That’s what they smell like.”

“Smell that, kids? That’s a skunk!”

“Dad,” Kendra said, “you don’t have to sound so excited.”

Her dad grabbed her mom’s hand. Then he kissed her. Kendra turned away.

Still couldn’t hate them.

Across the raggedy field that could hardly be called a yard, in the woods, something moved. The leaves, mostly green, turned pale sides up like the wind had ruffled them, but the weeds and grass were barely moving.

The inside of the car had been cold enough for her to need a sweatshirt, but out here within seconds her armpits started sweating. The sun was bright enough that she had to put up a hand to shield her eyes—monkeybrat had totally wrecked her favorite sunglasses and she hadn’t gotten to the mall to replace them before Dad packed them up to bring them here. Kendra blinked against tears she blamed on the sun, even though maybe it was really because of something else. Her vision blurred, and she blinked hard to clear it, trying to see what had caught her eye.

Ethan made a face. “I don’t like it here.”

“Shut up, monkeybrat.”

Ethan sighed heavily and kicked at the dirt under the toe of his sneakers. “I don’t have to.”

Kendra looked over her shoulder. Her mom and dad were still next to the car, their heads bent in conversation. Neither of them looking this way. “I saw something in the woods.”

“Like what?” Ethan looked up. “Dad said we could get a dog.”

“You don’t want a dog, not really. You’ll have to clean up its poop and stuff.” Kendra took a few steps away from the car toward the field and the woods beyond it, not really paying attention to her brother.