LITMIR.BIZ

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he’d barely noticed her.

      She was plain. Her straight, dark hair wouldn’t do anything but hang there, no matter how she cut or sprayed or styled it. She wasn’t allowed to wear more than a hint of makeup, and if she’d tried dressing in the half tops and short skirts that were popular with the “in crowd,” her father would have gone into cardiac arrest. Besides all that, she was too smart. All brains and no beauty. A nerd. A geek.

      Tiffany, on the other hand, was bleached to a sunshiny shade of blond and her hair was always perfect. Layers on the sides, fluffed up high on the top. Her skirts were short and flouncy, and she probably didn’t even own a shirt that came down as far as her navel. She wore several bracelets on each arm, huge gold earrings that shook when she moved, and enough makeup to sink a small ship. She knew how to send sidelong glances Holden’s way, how to giggle, how to flirt. All the things Lucinda had never been any good at. Oh, Tiffany was failing most of her classes, but Holden didn’t seem to care much about her grades. Lucinda knew perfectly well that Tiffany was well educated in…other areas. She was not an inexperienced virgin like Lucinda.

      The music died down, and the couples on the floor parted and moved toward the sides of the decorated school gym, or toward the punch bowl, or sneaked off toward the exits hoping for a chance to slip outside, unseen by the chaperones.

      Holden and Tiffany, however, stayed where they were. She was looking up at him, speaking very quickly, and then he was saying something back to her. He looked upset. Tiffany shook her head hard, side to side, earrings jangling. She turned away. Holden gripped her arm to pull her back, and she hauled off and slapped him. Hard.

      Lucinda sucked in a loud gasp, jumping to her feet, a reflex action she didn’t even think about first. Tiffany stormed away from poor Holden without a backward glance, and Holden, looking wounded and shocked, stared after her. Then, a moment later, he seemed to shake himself. Turning away, he wandered off in the opposite direction, and vanished into a crowd.

      Lucinda just stood there for a long time, hoping he’d emerge again. She was going to go over to him, ask him if he was okay. She would. She’d just drum up all of her courage and talk to him. She couldn’t believe Tiffany would break up with him that way, in front of half the school. No girl in her right mind would treat a guy like Holden that way. Lucinda certainly wouldn’t. If he were hers… She sighed and closed her eyes. Who was she kidding? It would never happen. Guys like Holden didn’t date girls like Lucinda. She might as well accept that and forget about him. In a few months he’d graduate, head off to college, and she’d probably never see him again.

      Holden was good and pissed. It wasn’t enough that Tiffany Lambert had to be the first girl in history to ever dump him before he got around to dumping her, but she had to do it in front of everyone. And she’d slapped him!

      He was furious when he stalked off into a corner, but the guys quickly surrounded him, slapping his shoulder and saying things like, “Who needs her anyway?” and “Hell, Holden, you can have any girl you want. What do you care?”

      He agreed with all those sentiments, of course. And the liquor helped. Billy Martin had smuggled a bottle of Seagram’s into the gym, and he opened his coat to give Holden a peek. Holden nodded, and then they all sauntered off to the boys’ bathroom and passed the bottle around.

      The more Holden drank, the angrier he got. And by the time he and the other boys staggered back into the gym, carefully avoiding any sharp-eyed chaperones, he was feeling the need for vengeance. Tiffany was standing in the corner talking to a bunch of her friends, most of whom Holden had slept with. He decided to make her jealous, remind her she wasn’t the only girl on the planet.

      He scanned the chairs that lined the gym walls for a suitable dance partner, and then froze when his gaze fell on pretty little Lucinda Brightwater. His throat went dry. He licked his lips. Lucinda was…different. Quiet. Shy. Very deep and very intelligent. She wasn’t the kind of girl a guy like Holden should get himself involved with. She was not a giggling teen out for a good time. She was a lady. She reminded Holden a lot of his own mother, with her quiet grace and soft-spoken dignity.

      And he reminded himself of his father. How many times had his dad told him how alike they were? Called him a chip off the old block? They even looked alike. And Cameron changed mistresses almost monthly, while Mary Ellen, Holden’s mother, somehow managed to forgive him every time. She was the saddest person Holden knew.

      No. He didn’t belong with girls like Lucinda Brightwater. Nice girls. Sweet girls. Girls who would let him break their fragile hearts. He had convinced himself of that a long time ago. He’d stick to shallow, loose girls out for a good time, girls who wouldn’t take things too seriously. Girls who wouldn’t get hurt. Like Tiffany Lambert.

      But tonight, he was drunk. And he was stinging from that slap and the public humiliation that went with it. And he was itching to show Tiffany that he didn’t need her, that he could have a real lady. One Tiffany could never measure up to. A flawless white rose of a girl almost too good to be touched.

      Holden sucked in a breath, and managed to walk without staggering over to where Lucinda sat. Her raven hair hung over her shoulders, straight and gleaming. Dark eyes widened at his approach, and rose to stare into his. And her copper-toned skin seemed as smooth as satin.

      “Would you dance with me, Lucy?” he asked. So far as he knew, no one ever called her Lucy. He thought of her that way, though. Secretly, he thought of her as Lucinda in the Sky. The only girl he knew who was completely beyond his reach, out of his league.

      She nodded slowly, eyes dark and mysterious. Getting to her feet, she stepped closer to him. Holden put his arms around her waist and pulled her toward him. Not quite touching, not yet. Even with as much as he’d had to drink, he didn’t forget that she was a lady. Her hands linked together at the base of Holden’s neck, and she moved her feet with his.

      “Are you all right?” she asked him.

      He looked down at her, nodded once. “You saw what happened, huh?”

      “Everyone did.” She bit her lower lip. “Sorry.”

      “Don’t be. Tiffany’s not.” He stumbled a little and pulled Lucy closer. Expecting her to pull away at once, Holden was a little surprised when instead, she hesitated, then lowered her head to his shoulder.

      Her hair smelled good. He slid his arms more completely around her waist.

      “So, is that why you’re dancing with me, Holden?” she asked softly. “To make Tiffany jealous?”

      He frowned down at her, then stumbled again, would have fallen if she hadn’t held him, steadied him.

      “You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Leaning up so close he thought she was going to kiss him, she sniffed instead. “You are. I can smell it on you. I should have known.” Taking herself out of his arms, she turned to walk away.

      But then she stopped and faced him again. “You brought your car, didn’t you? The one your father gave you for your eighteenth birthday?”

      He smiled slowly. So she wanted to ride in his Vette, did she? Somehow he hadn’t thought the car would hold the same appeal to a girl like Lucy that it did to the party girls he usually dated. But he was suddenly very glad. “Sure I did,” he said.

      Lucy sighed, shaking her head. “There’s no way you can drive home. Come on. I’ll take you in my mom’s car, and you can come back for yours in the morning. Sober.”

      Holden frowned, totally confused. “You don’t want to ride in the Vette?”

      “I could care less about the Vette. I would feel pretty bad, though, if I got up in the morning and heard that you’d wrapped it around a pole and got yourself killed.”

      “You would, huh?”

      She looked away from him, and when she looked back her eyes were wider. “Crabtree is coming over here. Act sober for heaven’s sake!”

      Holden plastered his most sober expression on his face, folded his arms and leaned back, thinking the

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