Oh, God, how she wanted to believe him, but the look of sheer terror in Mary Theresa’s eyes convinced her otherwise. Her stomach quivered, she turned away and nearly retched all over again. Her head was thundering, her heart pounding, denial pouring through her bloodstream. This couldn’t be happening! It couldn’t. Not Mary Theresa and Mitch. Oh, God, no!
“Maggie—” Mitch warned, the hard edge to his voice testament to his feelings.
Emotions roiling, Maggie didn’t wait. She pushed past him and started running, through the bushes, down the gravel path, and into the street. She didn’t know where she was going, didn’t care. She just had to get away. Far away.
The soles of her boots, the ones she’d worn riding, slapped on the cement of the sidewalk. The hillside homes seemed to pitch and whirl as she flew down the street. Somewhere behind an electronic gate a dog barked. Neighboring house lights snapped on. Tears of disbelief and shame filled her eyes. Denial tore at her soul. Racing ever faster, tears streaming down her cheeks, she tried to outrun a vision that was burned into her brain. Gasping, half-sobbing, she tore down the prestigious hill with its stately million-dollar homes and the silent isolated lives within.
Mary Theresa and Mitch! Blood relatives. They were practically brother and sister! Oh, God, no. Ever downward she ran, telling herself that what she’d seen was a mistake, that somehow she’d witnessed something entirely different. It was just her wild careless imagination that was jolting her out of control, that was it.
Above the illumination from the streetlamps, the stars seemed to jumble and collide. Inside, her heart pounded hard. Ready to explode. Her guts cramped.
Reeling, she stopped at a corner, panting, crying, placing her head between her knees, and wondering what in God’s name she would do. So her sister and brother were kissing, making out in the hot tub. It wasn’t a big deal, was it? So they’d been touching…that was part of growing up and exploring and…oh, who was she kidding? It was wrong. Way beyond wrong. It was sick. Even if they weren’t actually brother and sister. Still, they were related. What Mary Theresa and Mitch were doing violated some deep and primitive moral code.
Nothing happened. Mitch’s words rang in her ears, echoed through her mind.
Somewhere in the distance a police siren wailed through the night. A garage door opened and a neighbor dragged his trash can to the curb. Think, Maggie, think. You’ve got to go home. Face them. Face Mom and Dad. Her knees threatened to give way and she clung to the lamppost, taking in deep breaths of air laden with the scents of honeysuckle and roses.
She forced herself to her feet, began running again.
Not far away tires screamed on pavement.
Just pretend it didn’t happen, she told herself, like you didn’t see anything, just like you don’t see Mother pour vodka into her orange juice in the morning, or that you haven’t found bottles stashed in the laundry closet or behind the gardening tools. The hot-tub scene didn’t happen. You imagined it. Saw something else.
Headlights flashed on the asphalt as the sound of a car’s engine, Mitch’s Mustang, neared. Maggie started running again, faster and faster along the sidewalk that skimmed the edges of brick fences and wrought-iron gates and the secrets they guarded.
The thrum of a bass guitar reached her ears, the rhythmic cadence of drums. Mitch, driving his Mustang slowly, rolled down his window. “Get into the car, Maggie,” he ordered over the loud music.
“No!” She tried to run again.
“Listen—”
“Go away.” She reached the curb, stumbled, then dashed across a side street as another car caught her in its headlights.
“Damn.” Mitch gunned his engine, and at the far curb, Maggie turned sharply, up the side street. Her lungs burned, her thighs ached so bad they quivered, but she gritted her teeth and kept running. Adrenaline spurred her on. She heard the sound of Mitch’s tires screeching as he threw the gearshift into reverse and burned rubber. There was an ominous moment of silence when all Maggie could hear was her own ragged breathing and the thudding of her heart—then the squeal of rubber on asphalt, the sound of an engine being gunned angrily, and the smell of burned rubber hanging in the air.
In a second his car was beside her. Mitch leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window. “Get in.”
She didn’t answer, just kept running, uphill past the houses as her calves screamed in pain.
“Jesus Christ, Maggie, get in the car!”
She was gasping by this time, her lungs on fire.
“Fine.” He slammed on the brakes, threw open the car door, and, while the pounding beat of an old Creedence Clearwater Revival song rocked through the night, Mitch started running. In the best shape of his life, he caught up with her within seconds, grabbed hold of her arm, spun her roughly around, and stared down at her tear-stained face. “Let’s go home, Mag. Come on.”
“No!” She hit him then, her small fist pounding on his chest. “No!”
“Maggie, please. Oh, Christ.” He pulled her into the circle of his arms and rested his chin on her head.
She heard him breathing, felt his strong heart beating, was aware of the steel-like arms surrounding her. Mitch had always made her feel safe and now he was…was…she started sobbing again at the horrid thought.
“It’s not what you think.”
If she could only believe him.
“Mary Theresa and I were just messin’ around. We got into Mom’s Smirnoff and got a little carried away. That’s all.”
“I…I saw.”
“You don’t know what you saw. I was stupid, yeah. It was kind of a ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ thing. Dumb, huh?” Tipping her chin up with one finger he looked down at her and attempted a smile. But his face was pale, his eyes dead and she didn’t know what to believe. “Come on, Maggie. No harm, no foul. Let’s go home. Mary cleaned up the mess by the hedge and put Mom’s bottle back. No one has to know anything.”
“But—”
He dropped his arms and patted her on the head. “I’m an idiot, okay? A dickhead. I admit it. I shouldn’t drink. Ever. If the coach ever found out, I’d be dead meat, and this thing with Mary Theresa…well, it was my fault, I admit it, and we have to keep it quiet, okay? You know I love Sheila.”
Sheila Allman was Mitch’s girlfriend. They’d been going together since their sophomore year in high school. A cheerleader who had been homecoming princess and prom queen in the same year, she had been one of the most popular girls at White River High. Along with Mary Theresa.
“Come on, Mag. Get into the car.”
She couldn’t shake the bad taste in her mouth, the deep, piercing knowledge that she was being conned, but she had no choice. She had to return to the house. She had nowhere else to go, no one in whom to confide. On shaking legs she climbed into Mitch’s car, leaned against the passenger window as he cut a U-turn in the middle of the street. She stared sightlessly out the window as he drove with a little more restraint the short distance back to the house.
John Fogerty’s gravelly voice blasted from the speakers. “I heard it through the grapevine, not much longer would ya be mine…”
The music continued to pound as Mitch wheeled into the driveway and stood on the brakes. Maggie threw open the door and nearly fell from the low bucket seat to the pavement. Her legs were like rubber, her mind a kaleidoscope of horrid, ugly, sensual images. She didn’t wait for Mitch as she ran to the front door, into the house, and down the long tile hallway to her room. Mary Theresa’s door was closed, but a glow of blue light beneath the panels indicated that her lights were out, but she was watching television. Not that it mattered.
Maggie