Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (10 page)

“
Why does
Joel
call you
Danni
?”
His eyes seemed to twinkle at her as one corner of his mouth angled upward.

“He
shortens everyone’s name.
Just like he drives those weird old
clunker
s nobody wants. Why don’t you sit down? It’s hard for me to see your face without having to crane my neck.” 
She
p
a
t
t
ed the ground near
by
, her stomach doing a little jig at his nearness
.

“I think I’ll take a seat
over
here.” He pointed to a nearby
boulder. “The ground is wet from last night’s rain, and
I’ll bet that log is, too
. Which means y
ou’re
going to have a wet backside.”

She rose from the log. Dampness greeted her hand
when she checked
. “You’re right
.
Oh, well. It felt good to
look
up at the stars
.
”

She
felt
her cheeks
heating and hoped they were
n’t
red
.
Could Ben tell she liked the way he filled out his jeans, the way his short sleeves seemed to emphasize the muscles of his upper arms?
“
W
hat are you doing here
with
Happy
?”

“I’m
still
train
ing
him
and he needed a run. So he’d pay more attention to my commands
. T
he owner
i
sn’t sure he
’s
worth keeping unless he learn
s
manners
—like what I was
doing
when you came over the other day
.
”
As he
pat
ted the big dog, Happy lay down
and rolled over on his back
, waving his long legs in the air
.

Danni
patted
the dog
. He sat up,
placed
his head on her lap
,
looked
up
at her
and sighed
.

Ben laughed. “He’s in love with you,
Danni
.
He
pay
s
more attention to you than
to
me.”

“If you want, I could help you, after work.
I did quite a bit of obedience training last summer
—for pay
.”

He
grinned
at her.
“You aren’t going to charge me, are you? I’m on slave wages here.”

She shook her head. “
How about we trade?
Y
ou’re
doing surgeries with Joel. If you let me scrub in
when he’s not around
, I could hand you instruments and check vitals and stuff like that. Joel let me do that last year
every once in a while
, but with you here, I k
now I won’t get as many chances
. And then I’ll
teach you how to get Happy here to mind
better
.
”

“Sounds fa
ir enough.
”
His green eyes seemed to bore into her.
“How far away is your house?”

“Through the
break in the
fence and down a
mile or so
.” She
looked
up at the sky. “I’d better go. I told my mom I’d be home before dark
. It’s
getting close to that now.” She
head
ed to
ward
the
pat
h she had taken.

Turning back, she
call
ed
out
. 
“I’ll bet you didn’t know you’
re on private property
.
Don’t let the owner catch you. He might just shoot first and ask questions later, especially
if Happy gets loose
.
”
She
took
off at a run before he could ask questions.

As she headed down the hill, she heard him
yell at her retreating back
.
“Hey, wait a minute!
” Then
,
“
No,
dog. Happy
, come
!
T
his way
.”

“Private property, she said?” Joel lau
ghed. “Formerly a military base
is more like it. That girl put one over on you, Ben. Watch out, or she’ll be trying to take your place here.”

“She told me you used to let her scrub in.”
Ben
slipped off his g
love
s and stopped the anesthetic they
had used
on the dog
whose
scent gla
nd
they had
drain
ed
.

“Yep, I did. She’s got good hands,
love
s the animals, and has a great head on her shoulders. If I’m not here
, or the vet techs,
and you need a surgical assistant, feel free to ask her—as long as s
he isn’t busy with other things.
I have n
o objection to her helping you.
”
Joel
dri
ed his hands. “On to the critters in the exam rooms. You take
T
wo
and I’ll concentrate on
O
ne
.
Tell Bronnie, will you?
”

Ben’s
day was busy with the usual inoculations, minor injuries, and other staples of a small animal hospital
.
At the end of the day,
he
sat down
in the little kitchen that doubled as lab space
and
leaned
toward
Danni
, trying to count the freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose.
“So what was the name of th
at
owner whose prope
rty you said I
trespassed?”

She
glanc
ed
back
at him, a
smile
playing across her face
. “Don’t remember. Why do you care?”

“Oh, I just thought I’d better be prepared—in case the Shore
P
atr
ol boys ask me who that
beautiful
girl was
,
who
broke
through their
fence.” He laughed and left her
looking
stunned as he exited the building.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” S
he called after him, but he
grinne
d
, glad
Joel
had
clued him in.

That
evening
,
Danni’s
father
was frowning
when she entered the kitchen.  “Your grades came. You might want to tell me why I’m working so hard to keep you
in school
when you
almost
flunked out this term!”
H
e flung the report across the table at her.

She
looked
down
at the paper
. She’d aced the final in her English class and that had sealed her grade of A
, but
she had
received
a D in Speech, and the
bi
o
logy class whose final paper she had barely
finished
showed what she feared. The professor had given her an F. The two other B’s didn’t seem to counterbalance
her
two bad grades.

“Dad
—
I probably shouldn’t have taken five classes. I had
eighteen
hours.
It
was too much. I’ll retake the Speech and
Biology
. I
f I do that, I can get those low marks erased.”

“At what cost—by going another quarter or even an extra half-year?”
H
e
rose
to take off his jacket. “I’m not going to keep paying for you to go to that private school if you can’t hold up yo
ur end of the bargain. G
ood grades and a degree
—that’s what you’re supposed to be getting.
 
And w
hy
’
d you quit the soccer team? I thought you were happy when they
pick
ed you for the varsity
squad
even though
you were a freshman.
”

“M
y course load was too heavy
. The
b
iology
lab was the
sam
e time as our practices. C
oach said she’d give me a chance to get back on
the squad next year if I want
to—to play again.”
Except
I’m pregnant
now. No way
will I
be playing soccer now
.
She twisted a tissue in her lap, her appetite gone.

“Makes me wonder what els
e you were doing with your time.
Seems to me I r
emember a few times your mother called
and
Sarah
said you were out. Out where?  Not with some boy, I hope. Your job is to
concentrate on your classes
—not gallivanting around with some
college
boy.” He glared at her. “Well?” He spooned more
green beans
on
to
his plate.

“
I did go out a few times. But, mostly, they were study dates.”

“Study dates—what
exactly
were you studying—your
book
s or
a boy
?”

She could hardly breathe. Could he tell what she was thinking?
She p
ress
ed her hands against her belly.
“You know, we’d go to the library and study—our
book
s.” At least two of their dates had been at the library.
She’d planned to go to the library other times, but somehow Steve had al
ways detoured them to his car,
and
a few times
into his room
when his roommate was gone
. She blushed
,
thinking of th
ose dates
.

“Well, I hope you’re planning to work all summer. Lord knows you’re going to need the money
,
with these extra classes you
have to take.” He got up from the table and left her sitting there.

Danni
went to her room and shut the door. 
In
her closet was a box of special mementoes. She pulled
the box
off the shelf
.  The heart locket her grandmother had given her for her eighth birthday nestled near pictures taken at that birthday party—the last before her grandparents
were kille
d in a car accident. 

The frat pin Steve gave her was in the box for safe-keeping since her visit home during winter break—“a sort of pre-engagement pin,” he
’d
called it
the night
he
’d
finally
convinced her to
sleep
with him.
Valentine’s n
ight, after the dance
.
Sarah was right. You didn’t really
love
me like you said. You just wanted to have sex
.
She picked up the pin and fingered it
,
then
dropped
it
in
to
the box
, closed the
lid
, and pushed it onto the shelf. For good measure, she tossed a blanket on top, hiding
the box
completely from view
, trying not to think about
Steve
, the
positive
pregnancy test
and what she was going to do about it
.