Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson

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didn’t so much as flinch at the barbs of sarcasm in her words. “Let’s get a move on.” His gaze swept the interior of the cabin, to the fireplace, where only dead ash was testament of last night’s fire. “You’ve taken care of everything here?”

      “Yep.” She nodded. “As soon as Becca’s packed, I’m ready. Barkley’s going to camp out in the barn with the other animals until Charlie can pick him up and take him to his place. So”—she looked around her home one last time to see that everything was as it should be—“I guess we’re all set.”

      He nodded and walked down the short hallway to Becca’s room, when the phone rang again. Maggie snatched it up, crossing her fingers in the hope that it was her sister.

      “Ms. McCrae?” A male voice. Her heart nose-dived. “This is Craig Beaumont. I work with your sister, and I was just checking to see if you had any idea where she might be.”

      Maggie sagged against the cupboards. “No,” she said, her throat closing. This was all starting to be too real. She’d never met Beaumont, only knew he was a “pretty boy who would sell his mother to the devil for higher ratings,” according to Mary Theresa. Craig was worried, he claimed, and explained how Marquise hadn’t come in to work last Friday, how everyone at the station was worried, and how they’d been checking around. “…we tried to call earlier, but couldn’t get hold of you.”

      “I’m sorry.” She hung up a few seconds later and felt dead inside, her hopes dashed.

      “Trouble?” Thane asked as he walked into the kitchen, carrying her athletic bag and a smaller case that housed Becca’s portable CD player.

      “That was the man Mary Theresa works with.”

      “Ron Bishop, the station manager.”

      “No, her cohost.”

      “Beaumont.”

      “Yes. They were just checking.”

      “So she hasn’t shown up anywhere yet.”

      “No.” She shook her head and decided that the sooner she got to Denver, the better. “We’d better get going.”

      “I’ll load up.” Maggie helped Becca out to the truck, apologized profusely to Barkley as she locked him in a stall with the horses, then closed her ears to the sound of his whining as she slammed the door of the barn shut behind her.

      With one eye to the clouds that gathered in the morning sky, Thane stowed the bags beneath a canopy covering the bed of his truck, then climbed behind the wheel. They were squeezed together more tightly than Maggie liked, but she held her tongue.

      As soon as they put Becca on the plane, there would be more distance between Thane and her. She found little comfort in the thought, however, because from that point on she and the one man she’d sworn never to trust would be alone, driving through a desolate part of the country where sometimes the radio reception was so bad that they would be forced to keep each other company.

      Becca, seemingly oblivious to the tension between her mother and her aunt’s ex-husband, scrounged in her CD case, found a disc she wanted, shoved it into the player, and placed the headphones over her ears. Her head swaying in rhythm to the music, she cranked up the volume to a decibel loud enough that Maggie could make out some of the lyrics.

      Thane shoved the truck into gear, and, as the first snowflakes of the morning began to drift from a graying sky, they left the cabin behind.

      Something was going on. Something big. But Becca couldn’t figure out what it was. Listening to an old Nirvana CD, she couldn’t get into the music that usually swept her away. Neither Kurt Cobain nor his hard guitar chords dispelled her sense of the immediate tension that was thick between her mother and Thane Walker, Marquise’s ex-husband. Weird. Maybe Marquise was in worse trouble than they were saying.

      Becca stole a look at her mother from the corner of her eye. Beneath the fringe of her lashes she caught a glimpse of Maggie, white-faced and biting on the edge of a thumbnail. Sitting stiffly, almost as if she had a case of rigor mortis, her mother stared out the windshield. Her lips were turned down at the corners and she looked worried, the way she had when she’d told Becca about the divorce just over a year ago.

      Inside, Becca’s stomach churned and she closed her mind to thoughts of her parents. Sure they’d fought. Big deal. Everyone’s parents had fights. But somehow theirs had escalated to the point of divorce.

      And then her dad had died.

      The back of her eyes burned for a second, and she gritted her teeth as Kurt Cobain sang on and on. The empty part of her, the part that still hurt, burned again and she refused to think of her father or the fact that he wouldn’t have died if it hadn’t been for that last ugly fight.

      “Shit,” she mumbled.

      “What?” Her mother’s head swung in her direction.

      “Nothin’.” She didn’t want to go into it and closed her eyes as the song ended. For a few seconds the silence in the pickup was deafening, then a crash of guitar chords started the next tune. Thank God. She’d listen. And instead of thinking about her parents and the crummy past, she’d concentrate on her future. And L.A. She smiled and decided she wasn’t going back to Idaho ever again. It was like nowhere. Real hicksville. Aunt Connie would take her in; Jennifer had said so. And Jennifer had also promised on her next visit to take her to a party to meet some guys. She also said that they’d get their navels pierced and maybe even go to a tattoo parlor for some body art.

      It would be so cool.

      And her mom would flip.

      Excellent. Becca slunk lower in the seat and bobbed her head in time with the drumbeats. She wasn’t sure what kind of tattoo she’d get, but she wanted to put it on her ankle so people could see it when she wasn’t wearing socks. A butterfly would be cool, but was kinda common. Not in Idaho, of course, but in L.A. A spider was a little too creepy, but a hummingbird might be just right. She smiled to herself, envisioning the colorful creature hovering just above her heel, its long beak dipping into a small flower. Yeah, that would do it.

      And Mom will freak out.

      Perfect.

      A little twinge of guilt pricked her conscience, but she refused to think about it. For now she’d concentrate on having the time of her life in Los Angeles.

      Later, as they passed over White Bird Hill, she sneaked a peek at Thane. Grim-faced, wearing sunglasses and concentrating on the snow that had started falling from the sky in small, icy pellets, he stared straight ahead. As if there wasn’t another soul in the pickup. For an old guy, he was okay-looking, if you liked the rangy cowboy type. He looked like he’d rather be riding a bucking bronco or at least a huge motorcycle. There was an edge to him that even Becca, at age thirteen, could feel. So what was the deal with him and her mother? Why did they act as if they couldn’t stand each other?

      Becca had never heard much talk about Marquise’s first husband, only that Maggie had never approved of the marriage and had always changed the subject whenever it had been brought up. She seemed to hate this guy.

      Not that it mattered one way or the other. The only thing that Becca cared about was that she was about to be free, and she never intended to return to Backwoods USA again. In a few hours, she’d be outta there. For good.

      It was about time.

      Chewing on a toothpick he’d picked up at the airport restaurant, Thane watched the jet scream down the runway. Snow was building on either side of the tarmac, and the silver bird’s wings had been de-iced before takeoff, yet he felt Maggie’s case of nerves as if they were his own. Beside him, her face pressed to the glass, she seemed to hold her breath as the jet lifted its nose to the air, then took flight.

      “This is the first time I’ve let her fly on her own,” she admitted, as her daughter’s plane disappeared into the clouds.

      “She’ll be fine.”

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