Inherit (2 page)

Jonas heads out with some tools gripped in his huge, oil-smeared hands. He stops by the driver-side window and peers in with polite regard. “You need a drink or something?”

My mouth is Gobi-desert dry. “I’m good,” I lie.

He checks the tire and shakes his head, then walks around, checking the other tires. I can see him in my rearview mirror, his huge frame bent low over the concrete.

“This the one?”

I slide out of the truck and drag my toe over an oil spot. “Yep. It’s done for, right?”

His smile loosens a little. “Yeah. Not to worry. I’ll get the jack and have it fixed up in no time.”

I lean against a pump and watch as he drags the jack over, loosens the lugnuts, and goes through the steady motions of changing the tire. He has long muscles, not like the football players have. These are the kind of muscles that I imagine rowers would have. Only I don’t know any rowers, so I could be wrong. He has light brown hair, gold in some spots, shiny and a in need of a trim. Or not. Longish is sexy on him. His jaw is a square, his mouth a line, his nose a hook, his eyes two bright blue slits. He’s all geometry and square, guyish symmetry. Stunningly handsome, but standoffish. No girlfriend, or boyfriend for that matter, that I know of.

Sometimes, waiting in line for my Salisbury steak at our school cafeteria, I catch myself looking him over and I feel like he’s not supposed to be here, in northeast New Jersey in the twenty-first century. It seems like he was dropped out of the wild Celtic heather or just stepped off one of those Viking ships with the dragon prows, like the kilted, sword-wielding guys on the glossy romance novel covers in the grocery store book aisle.

He works quickly, and I see him grin at my sad little spare and shrug his wide shoulders before he puts it on, then tightens the lug-nuts and double-checks everything with slow, meticulous attention. My heart gallops like a stallion herd as he walks to the window.

“Thank you so much, Jonas. If there’s ever something I can do for you—”

“I need a ride.” He cuts in smooth as a hot knife through butter. “My ride left at shift’s end. I don’t live far.”

I slice my eyes to the mystery box, check the spare he just put on in my rearview and nod. “I’d be happy to.”

He points to a rusty gas pump. “Pull up there. I’ll fill her up for you.”

I inch up to the pump and try not to stare as he works with such grace it seems like he should be carving ivory or drawing a bow, not filling my gas-tank.

He catches my eye in the mirror and smiles, a glint of hard teeth with prominent canines—predators’ teeth.

When he gets to the passenger side of the truck, he looks in at the box, and turns his head to the side with calm thoughtfulness. “Your little friend chewed through the cardboard.”

Chapter 2

“Chewed?” I squeal. I’m beyond caring if I sound like a vacuous twit. This thing has teeth and chewed through a box. I’m not remotely ashamed to admit I’m terrified!

“Maybe it needs to go to the bathroom?” Jonas’s suggestion is made in a rational, even voice. It helps me calm down. It helps me forget the incisors, fangs, or claws that could be waiting to bite, snap, or scratch me. Well, almost.

I jump out of the truck and sneak over to the passenger side, where I stand like a petrified kid in a haunted house behind the opened door. Jonas works a bigger hole in the box, and a little head pokes through the cardboard shards.

A little red head with sleek fur and pointed ears pops up and looks at Jonas, then cranes its neck to see me.

Like it’s looking for me.

Its eyes melt somewhere between gold and amber, and it has a soft white expanse of fur under its jaw. It’s beautiful, and has a strangely human expression.

When it looks at me, I feel like I’m being sized up. I assume foxes spend time thinking about catching mice and…I have no clue what else they think about. But I imagine, looking at this fox’s face, that it’s not thinking simple animal thoughts. I imagine it’s judging me, and that freaks me out more than a little.

But then the judgment passes, and the fox turns its head sideways and gives me this look I can’t quite put my finger on.

Like it accepts me.

I suddenly have the exact same warm and tingly feeling I had the minute I first laid eyes on Vee across the snack table at preschool. It took one look from those soft hazel eyes as she wordlessly passed a wedge of apple across the table, and I felt like she’d cast fish hooks directly into my heart and pulled tight. I was caught, and there was no wiggling away. It was a feeling of instant, complete, love-laced camaraderie that wound up being rare and extremely precious.

I’m feeling the reflection of that playground love right now with this fox.

Jonas moves away to give me access to the box, but I recoil. Despite the strange heartstring pull I feel, I’m anxious. There’s nothing to indicate that this fox is anything but a gentle, intelligent animal. But it still has a mouthful of glinting, sabered teeth, and I don’t need stitches. Jonas, on the other hand, is wearing a heavy coat, definitely fox-bite resistant.

“Can you lift it down? Do you mind?” I ask, my arms crossed over my chest.

Wordlessly, Jonas lifts the fox and lowers it to the ground. It steps out, sniffs and snuffs, then trots into the dense woods a few hundred feet away and disappears as quickly as it sprang out of the box.

“Fox!” I yell, tripping over my feet as I jog towards the still-shivering weeds. “Fox! Shit! What am I going to do now?”

Jonas is already behind me, his big body blocking the wind.

“It’ll come back.” He moves closer until our shoulders touch. “Come and wait in the truck. It’s freezing and you don’t even have a coat on. By the way, why is that? Do you enjoy bronchitis?” His voice minces the words with aggravation that is strangely endearing.

“I don’t have a coat that I like.” We trudge back to the truck and climb in with a solid bang of the doors.

“But you have a coat?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Does it fit?” I nod. “Is it warm?” I nod again. “So, what’s not to like?”

“It’s ugly.” I shiver, jam the key in the ignition, start the engine, and flick the heat on, even though I hate burning through the gas I can barely afford. “I do ninety-nine percent of all the things I’m supposed to do every day. If I don’t want to wear an ugly old coat, I’m not going to.

“You should wear your coat.” He shrugs his long arms out of his coat, pulls it off of his shoulders and passes it to me.

I try to think of something smart to say to him, but the gas gauge catches my eye. I can keep my pride, or have enough gas to get us home.

“Don’t you need it?” I glance at the thin thermal under his work shirt.

“Take it. Please,” he adds, his voice polite without being condescending. Perfection.

I cut the engine and take his coat. “Thanks.” It’s still toasty warm from his body heat, and it stinks like motor oil and gas. The smell makes my eyes burn, but the warmth is worth it.

The sun sinks behind the trees and Jonas leans his head back on the headrest.

“Sorry for making you late getting home.” I risk a glance over at him, all sharp features and grease-tinged skin.

“It’s okay. I like the company.” He rolls his head towards me and smiles such a slow, lazy smile, his face transforms. He looks warm instead of cool, touchable instead of infuriatingly standoffish.

My fingers itch to run over the smooth skin of his neck, right where it meets his shoulder.

“We should go in a few minutes if it doesn’t come back.” My gut clenches tight at the thought, but I can’t stay parked on the side of the highway all night.

“Let’s go and look.” He elbows his door open and I take a deep breath and follow through the scratchy weeds and into the forest so dark and silhouetted, it could be the cover of a Grimm’s collection.

Before the tall, dead grass turns into rough tree trunks, Jonas holds one hand out and waits. For me.

I tug up on the freezing zipper of his coat, then grab his fingers in the dark and curl mine into them. My hands are as rough as his, chapped from washing them a hundred times a day when I’m on shift at the diner where I work. We both have short nails, the right length to keep reasonably clean no matter how dirty our jobs get. His fingers are long and knobby with jutting knuckles. Mine are smooth and stubby, barely fitting around his hand. His skin is warm and dry, mine cool and clammy. We’re different and the same, but together, there’s a strength and safety that gives me a shot of bravery.

We crunch through a foot-deep carpet of dead leaves that swish softly past our ankles. Jonas sticks a hand out and pushes aside brambles that would rip at my skin. He also ducks first under the sticky woven spider webs I somehow never see until they’re netted over my face, suffocating me with panic. The sun is gone. I smell the dense grey smoke of a leaf fire somewhere nearby.

His voice breaks through the hush of the twilit forest all of a sudden. “Last term during debate, I didn’t agree with the issue, Wren. I was on the opposition side for reparations.” He lifts a tree branch over his head so I can pass under unscathed. “I hated Mrs. McKenna for assigning that debate.”

The moon is big and bright as a silver dollar through the old trees’ reaching branches. In the pale glow, his face is tense, his mouth a slash of frustration.

“I shouldn’t have overreacted.” My overloud voice echoes around us. I tone it down. “McKenna was fair. You and I were slotted to debate.”

“But reparations? It was insensitive of her. I mean, for you.” His hand tightens slightly around mine, and all my blood sings and whirls like Maria on those big green hills in
The Sound of Music
. As corny as that movie is, I always get choked up right at that part, because I want to twirl like that and feel that way, and now, even sans all that altitude, I think I might know exactly how she felt with her arms whipped out, spinning around like a mad woman.

Jonas Balto is making me feel musical-giddy with one little squeeze of our hands.

“She made Nevaeh debate affirmative action that year. And she gave her con, so it’s alright. She wanted us to break out of our comfort zones. Or whatever.” Something that had a strong hold on my heart loosens, and everything feels lighter—the air swooping in and out of my lungs, my feet crunching the leaves, our hands linked and warm. “But I appreciate it. I mean, that you apologized. You didn’t need to, but it means a lot to me to know for sure that you were just doing the assignment.”

He tugs at my hand. “I know I can be a jerk sometimes, but I don’t actually think it was fair for the government to screw an entire group of people just because of their background. If you thought otherwise, you don’t have much faith in me.”

“I don’t know you that well.”

“We’ve been in the same school since kindergarten. I live ten minutes away from you and have all my life.” He lays the facts out, but neglects the obvious.

“Okay. So we’ve been around each other a lot. Being around someone doesn’t mean you know them well.” I’m surprised when he squeezes my hand again, and I turn to look at him.

When he flashes me a smile, the moonlight glints brightly off of his sharp teeth. “We should remedy that.”

We stop walking and huddle for warmth. His face is close to mine. I take in the dark curve of his eyebrows, the hook of his nose, the gold prickle of five o’clock shadow that covers his sharp jaw. Suddenly his features blur and my eyes close.

I expect warmth, but there’s only the cool brush of the wind, and when I let my eye slit open, he’s looking at a dark collection of trees far off and I’m left trying to play off my missed-kiss disappointment. The trees are black against a navy sky, bordered by a moon-silvered edge of leaves; it would be a scene devoid of any color, except for a red ball that bounces toward us. The fox darts straight to my feet and drops something on the toe of my shoe.

I close my eyes again and swallow hard. “Jonas? Did that fox just drop a mouse on my foot?”

He kneels down and picks it up. “No.”

The word is flat and harsh. I doubt he’s holding anything as innocent as a dead mouse on his palm.

When I lean closer, there’s a roll of money, secured with a rubber band. I poke it to make sure it’s real, then pick it up. The dense weight tells me it’s probably a good amount. I peel back a few bills and my mouth goes dry.

“Thousands,” I say when Jonas gives me a questioning look. The fox twitches its tail, then dashes back towards the truck. I make a move to chase it, but Jonas grabs my arm.

“Wren, where did it get that money?”

Suddenly the moonlight doesn’t feel so romantic and the hush of the forest has distinctly sinister undertones. Where
did
all of this money come from?

“I have no clue. What do you think?”

Jonas looks around. “Someone must be out here.”

“Shhh!” I shush him and glance around anticipating some mob of meth heads to jump out of the bushes or a guy in a sharkskin suit with a gunshot wound to fire a few rounds in our direction. “Whoever lost that money is
not
someone we want to get involved with.”

“You don’t know that.” Jonas refuses to whisper. “There could be a logical explanation for this money being here.”

“Like?”

“Someone could have dropped it while they were…hiking.” The last word pulls long and weak as warm taffy.

“Hikers? You think a
hiker
was carrying a small fortune in cash wrapped with a rubber band?” I hiss. “Let’s leave the money here and go. Now.”

I let the wad of money hit the ground and stomp away without a glance back. But I’m not positive what direction I should head in. I followed Jonas blindly into the woods, and nothing looks familiar to me. Maybe I should have paid less attention to his big hands and chiseled jaw and looked for some damn landmarks.

“Wren! Wait!” He crashes through the forest, making more noise than an elephant would. “You’re headed the wrong way! Let’s just look around, okay?”

“Why? Don’t you understand that if we find the
living
owner of this money, chances are they will hurt us? Badly? And if they’re not alive anymore, then they’re a
corpse
? I don’t want to get killed and I don’t want to find a dead body. Drop the money and let’s go!” By now I’ve forgotten that I’m supposed to be quiet, and I’m yelling. Whoever might be looking for us will be able to find us, no doubt. On the bright side, at least if they’re following my voice, they’ll realize that I don’t want to steal their money.