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Pure, incredible, twitchy pleasure.
It was a long time before she found her voice. Her body still trembled, her left wrist hurting with the shudders, and her lungs were grabbing whatever molecules they could, giving up on the futility of a full, deep breath. “I didn’t know,” she whispered.
Sam sank onto the bed, shifting so he didn’t smother her with his weight. “Didn’t know what?”
She pushed her fingers through his hair. “You can read everything you can find on a subject, use your imagination and think you know…but you can’t really, truly know until you’ve experienced it, with all the little feelings, for yourself.”
He gave her a smile in equal measures sweet and satisfied. He thought she was talking about sex, and she was, but other things, too. For a long time, she’d made no effort to follow Gramma’s and Dr. Fleischer’s advice and open herself to new experiences because she’d read about life. She’d thought she knew what it was, and she hadn’t thought it worth taking the chances necessary to have it for herself.
Having someone other than Gramma in her life mattered. Having Sam in her life and her bed and her heart mattered. Even if this thing between them didn’t last—she still had secrets, the worst ones of all—even if he broke her heart, she would be better for having taken this chance with him.
Oh, God, that sounded sappy and sentimental and just plain goofy, but it felt awesome. After all, she’d never been allowed to be sappy or sentimental or just plain goofy.
He mattered. And she mattered, too.
CHAPTER 10
Gramma knew better than to think that because we made it to the road, we were safe. My mother would fling herself to the ground in an all-out fit of temper, screaming out her frustration and breaking anything within reach. That was her way.
My father would take action—violent action. That was his way.
The storm was the worst I’d ever seen. Rain blew sideways, and tree branches flailed in the wind like feathers. Pops sounded on the flat surfaces of the car as hail pounded, and the lightning came so bright and so often that the image of one strike still burned on my eyes even after the next flashed. I didn’t know how Gramma managed to see the road, fight the wind and watch the rearview mirror.
I was huddled in my seat, hot and cold and wet, starting to shake inside, not daring to think or speak or even look around, when Gramma caught her breath. “Dear God, no.”
I twisted around, my stomach cramping when I saw the headlights veering wildly behind us. It was my father. Ours was the last house on the road, the biggest reason he’d chosen it. I had never seen another car on the road in the months we lived there, and it was too much to believe it was someone else now. He was coming after us, and if he caught us…
Faster. I wasn’t sure I’d said the word aloud, and I tried again. “Faster, Gramma. Please…faster…”
The car skidded, the tires fishtailing, but she didn’t slow down. No, she drove as if Satan himself chased us. But he drove even faster, coming closer. I felt the danger, the threat. If you try to run away, I’ll kill you. He always kept his promises. This time would be no different.
Ahead I caught a glimpse of a stop sign, but Gramma didn’t slow. Swinging the steering wheel tight, she turned onto the highway, the rear tires fishtailing again. She narrowly missed a car going the other way. Its horn blared, but she just stomped harder on the gas pedal.
I wanted to believe that we were safe now we were on the highway, but the feeling wouldn’t come. Didn’t he call himself the luckiest man in the world? Hadn’t he committed crime after crime, murdered woman after woman and never gotten caught? He was more motivated than Gramma. He was crazier than her. He would catch us. If he couldn’t stop us, he would force us off the road. He couldn’t let her escape, and he wouldn’t let me go.
We skidded, crossed the center line again, ran another stop sign. Gramma looked like a wild woman, still an avenging angel but a frightened one now. The only thing she knew to do was drive faster, no matter how dangerous it was, and she knew, just as I did, that probably wouldn’t be enough.
It’s all right, I wanted to say. You came for me. You didn’t forget me. You tried to save me. That was enough for me. It was more than anyone else had ever done.
