Slow Burn

Might be. They hadn’t been after Danny’s grave, no one knew yet what had really been going on. But…

But something might come of it.

David was following her. Sly had hired David to follow her. Oh, God. Sly had paid David to watch her. The last thing she wanted in her life was David following her, watching her.

Oh, God. She poured more brandy and gulped that down, too. And then she had some more.

It might be nearly three o’clock in the morning, but brandy was the only way in hell she was ever going to get to sleep tonight.

4

Sometimes the past seemed forever away. And sometimes, especially in dreams, it felt as if it had never gone away.

It was almost as if she was there again, on that long-ago day by the rock pit where they all congregated after school. She had been sixteen, David and some of the others were almost eighteen then. The dream had texture and taste. She could feel the stinging warmth of the sun.

It probably wasn’t such a great place for them to be. There certainly wasn’t any kind of supervision. The water was very clear, so clear that you could swim down and see all the wrecked cars that had gone off or been dumped. The boys liked to tease the girls and tell them that there were still bodies in the trunks of the cars, that there were a few skeletons still sitting right in the front seats, as well. “But we all know that’s not real,” Cecily would inform them regally. “Boys just like to scare girls. It’s easier to get into a girl’s pants if she’s scared. At least, that’s what boys think,” she assured them all.

“All” meant their group, one they had formed when they were around twelve and pretty much kept together ever since. Danny Huntington was the leader of the male pack, with Spencer’s cousin Jared coming in a close second. Then there were Ansel Rhodes and George Manger, followers to the core. And then, paradoxically a part and yet not a part, there was David Delgado.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want him in their group—they did. It was funny. When they had been even younger and Danny had first dragged him in, they’d all stuck their noses up just a bit. David just didn’t come from the same kind of family. He spoke Spanish as easily as he spoke English. He was dark; even his eyes were dark, though they were blue, not the black they often appeared. His clothes were mended and remended, and a lot of the time he couldn’t do things because he had chores to take care of for his grandfather. But he didn’t seem to resent not having a good time.

Then, suddenly, he was in school with them. He worked hard; Spencer saw him staying after school to study almost every day. It was a hard school; homework took about three hours a night. Unless, of course, you were Jared and skimmed by, paying other kids to do the work for you. But it wasn’t academics that really got David Delgado noticed—it was sheer athletic ability. The small private school had never had great baseball or football teams. With David playing, they suddenly began to win a few games. By the time they got to the rock pit on that particular afternoon, David was probably the most popular kid in the school. He could accept the acclaim that came his way, but he never sought it. He still did chores for his grandfather. He came to things when he chose and backed away when he chose, too. He was never with them at the country club dances or some of the other social events their parents planned for them.

None of that mattered, or maybe it helped. To Spencer, just like the other girls in her circle—Cecily, Terry-Sue and Gina Davis—David Delgado was even more appealing because of that little touch of something different about him. He was the kind of boy their folks didn’t quite approve of; he wasn’t one of them. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t into drugs, didn’t rob convenience stores and was a hell of a lot more moral than most of the kids in their circle. What mattered was that he didn’t come from the old guard—that he was a refugee.

Spencer didn’t give a damn. She thought it was wonderfully romantic—and erotic, a word she was beginning to find fascinating. Maybe there was something else a little bit deeper than those feelings, as well. She knew that Sly liked David. Really liked him. Not conditionally, the way her parents did. Sly just out and out liked David; it didn’t matter one iota to him whether David had come from Cuba or the moon. And for all her life, Sly had been Spencer’s favorite person. So if Sly approved of David…

Actually, that day, thinking hadn’t really entered into it. It was summer, and the heat was piercing, and they’d packed picnic lunches. Spencer had gotten a brand new cherry red Jeep for her birthday, Jared had his mom’s last-year’s Volvo, Ansel Rhodes had a new Firebird, and David had a great ‘57 Chevy he had bought himself, earning the money at a photo lab where he worked Saturdays and some afternoons.

Spencer almost wished she hadn’t gotten the damned car. She had driven that afternoon while Terry-Sue had all but crawled on top of David in the front seat of his car.

Reva was with them that day. She was in Spencer’s class, but she’d become part of the gang because of her brother. She was in school due to the same strange magic that had gotten David in, the same “scholarship.” Sly denied that he was paying their tuition, but Spencer knew in her heart that he denied it only because he didn’t want David’s hardworking grandfather to think that he couldn’t do the best for his grandchildren on his own. Sly was great about that. He never needed accolades for doing what he thought was right.

And Reva was sweet, so everyone enjoyed having her around. She had a disposition like gold; she laughed at everyone’s jokes. She was also an incredibly pretty girl, and the guys certainly appreciated that—not that any of them would consider touching her, or even cracking any of their adolescent jokes about her. Maybe David was being raised by a strange old Scottish grandfather, but he showed no lack of Cuban machismo where his sister was concerned. He watched over her like a hawk. But there was really no need, anyway. They were all friends. Just friends. Nobody was actually with anybody else.

Except for Terry-Sue, who was still climbing all over David once the cars were parked, the blankets laid out and the food baskets set up.

In her crimson bikini, lathered in suntan oil, Spencer was stretched out on one of the blankets, half in the sun, half out of it. She could feel her flesh turning hot, sticky. She could feel the heat beating down on her, then the coolness of the breeze whenever a stray cloud wandered over the sun and the pines that ringed the rock pit began to bow and sway. She pretended to be oblivious to anything but her lazy sunning. Her head was down, her back exposed, and she had an arm stretched carelessly over her eyes.

Not really.

She was watching.

Watching—and seething.

Terry-Sue was having the time of her life.

She was a cute girl with a cap of rich dark auburn hair. She was short, petite—with a chest that didn’t quit. In fact, Spencer thought, just a little bit maliciously, that Terry-Sue was just one gigantic set of boobs. It wasn’t that her bikini was any more daring than anyone else’s, but…

It was just that she spilled out of the damned thing. All over. And she had her chest just about shoved beneath David’s nose every other second.

A giggle, shrill, very feminine, crossed the air and seemed to rip right along Spencer’s spine. “David!” Terry-Sue called out in laughing protest. He’d lifted her up, her hands on his shoulders, and he was about to dunk her again. He was laughing good-humoredly. None of the guys looked as good as David. One day they might. One day. But David had matured first. His shoulders were broad, he was deeply tanned—he even had hair on his chest. His stomach was rippled, hard and flat. They were all very nearly adults, but physically, David Delgado was there, and his appeal was both sensual and sexual. Spencer had always liked him; she’d thought he’d always liked her. She’d even helped him a few times with English grammar, a subject that came to her naturally.

And since they all had to take Spanish in school, she’d sweetly asked for help back. And gotten it. If anyone was going to get any closer to David, it should be her. He didn’t spend all his time with their group; he had dated other girls, she knew. She had even spent a few nights staring at the ceiling, wondering what he did with other girls—no, women. David would go after women. He was almost two years older than she was, but girls matured faster, or so she had always been told.

Like Terry-Sue. She was definitely mature. She was so damned mature it looked like she might just topple forward with maturity at any second.

“They’re just fooling around, you know,” Spencer heard someone say. She moved her arm, startled. No one should have been able to realize that she’d been watching the horseplay in the water, but someone had. Reva. Still a little shy around them, and just a shade too darn intuitive.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spencer said flatly. She stretched and sat up, yawning. She wasn’t about to admit to Reva that she had been watching her brother. “Hand me a Coke, will you, please, Reva?” she asked, determinded to coolly dismiss the subject.

Reva, on her knees on the blanket, reached into the cooler for a Coke. She might be shy, but she wasn’t about to be so easily dismissed. “He really likes you, Spencer. He always has.”

“Sure, we’re friends. We like each other,” Spencer said. She stood up restlessly. “Never mind the Coke. I’ll just cool off in the water.”

She could swim well, and she knew it. She could dive like an expert, as well—she should be able to, her mother had insisted on enough lessons. Now she was determined to use a little of what she knew how to do. Through training—and instinct. There was a small overhang that jutted out high over the water. A dive from there was dangerous, because there were jagged outcrops of rock surrounding very deep water. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea, since there were so many wrecks in the water.

But it was the only place where she could get any height. She strode up to the overhang with a lazy, long-legged stride. She wasn’t stupid, and not only did she not want to die, she didn’t want to wind up maimed or in pain, either, so she took a very careful look at the water as she got her bearings.

“Spencer Montgomery, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” came a shout.

She was so startled that she almost took a misstep. It was David. He was still in the water.

And Terry-Sue still had her arms around him, her “assets” crushed to his chest.

“Diving!” she called irritably.

And before he could stop her, she took the plunge.

The water, cool and fresh, enveloped her, and she knifed downward at a fantastic speed. She just missed the edge of a crashed Valiant, then managed to reverse her direction and move toward the surface. She was almost there when she felt hands on her shoulders, wrenching her up.

David.

Well, that had been the idea, hadn’t it? To attract his attention? She had it now.

Except that she didn’t want it this way.

He was glaring at her, hair wet and slicked back, features harsh. “What the hell did you think you were doing, you little fool?”

“I knew what I was doing. I can swim, I can dive!”

“And you were being a snot-nosed little show-off!” he assured her. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“And if I had,” she returned, humiliated, infuriated, “it would have been none of your goddamned business.” For a moment she thought incredulously that he was about to slap her across the cheek right then and there, while they were treading water.

“You’re right, Miss Montgomery. It’s none of my damned business. But Sly would have been upset if something had happened to you, and I happen to care a whole lot about Sly. So if you have to show off, try not to do it in front of me. We all know you’re just about perfect, Spencer. You don’t have to prove it to anyone.”

He let go of her, leaving her shaking. At least, with the water to hide her, no one could tell. Everyone was watching them from the banks of the pit, but, she thought gratefully, David hadn’t shouted. His words hadn’t been heard.