Love Me If You Dare (Safe Haven) (3 page)

I
was Kaylee Sawyer, the girl who had always stood in the shadow of her twin, the
girl who had made a tragedy happen by not being content with staying in the shadows.

The
reminder pressed down on me, and for an unhappy moment I considered calling
Joel. I couldn’t tell him about Dylan, oh hell no, but he’d try to cheer me up
just because I was hurting.

I
dismissed the thought as soon as I had it. I had to stop reaching out to him
like he was my boyfriend, unless I was actually prepared to give him that
commitment.

If
I hadn’t already known that I wasn’t, the mess that Dylan had made of my heart
in the two minutes I’d seen him would have spelled it out.

“Get
me out of here.” I shuddered, reaching for the door. I half meant the party,
and half meant my home town in general.

The
hair on the back of my neck rose as I left the bathroom. It gave me enough of a
split second warning that I didn’t jolt when I found Dylan standing just inside
the entrance to the small bedroom.

His
arms were crossed over his muscular chest, and his expression was stern. He
seemed to fill the entire room, just by standing in it, something that I
remembered well.

Dylan
had always seemed larger than life. Just like Ella.

“What
do you want?” My voice was sharp, even waspish, as I halted just outside the
bathroom. I curled my toes into the floor, concentrating on how the short
carpeting prickled the bare soles of my feet.

I
didn’t care that I was being short. What did it matter, after all? Dylan had
been Ella’s friend, not mine.

“I’m
sorry.” There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of emotion behind his words, but
that was just Dylan. Stoic. A rock.

Not
expressing how he felt didn’t mean that he didn’t feel it.

“It’s
fine.” It wasn’t—of course it wasn’t. But all of the emotions that had been
pushing at me all day had scrubbed my heart raw, and I couldn’t handle the
thought of a confrontation. Not that I’d ever been any good at them.

“When
did you get back?” Though his face remained nearly expressionless, those eyes
raked over me.

I
wished I didn’t still feel the tug between us.

“Today.”
My voice sounded rusty, as if I hadn’t used it for a very long time. “I’m just
here for the summer.” Next year I’d have to be extra diligent to find a job
before school was done, so that I could avoid ever setting foot in Fish Lake,
Oregon again.

There
was a pause, and I stared at the toes that I was still curling into the carpet.

“How’s
your mom?” He asked. As I sank my teeth into my lower lip, I told myself that
he couldn’t possibly care, but I knew that wasn’t true.

Dylan
had always seen too much, and he’d practically lived at our house during the
time when my mom’s drinking had gotten worse.

He
knew what she was like now, I was sure of it. And if I let him in too close, he
would see what I was like too.

Silently,
I raised my stare and looked him over. His hair was that same thick golden mess
that made my fingers itch to touch. He’d put a couple of inches on his already
impressive six feet in the last few years, and the rangy muscle that I
remembered had thickened. A hint of something sexy and smoky had replaced the
notes of engine grease that had once layered into his addictive smell. The
tattoo that peeked out the sleeve of his dark gray t-shirt was new. It looked
like some kind of bird, though it was half covered up and I couldn’t quite
tell.

I
was entranced by it. I wanted to touch it, wanted to show him that I had one
too. God, I’d wanted him for so long. Sometimes it felt like forever.

But
he’d been Ella’s. Though I’d wanted so badly to believe differently, that meant
that he couldn’t ever be mine.

“It’s
good to see you, Kaylee.”

I
stared at him, shocked by his words, to find the eyes in that inscrutable face
raking over me hungrily. Against my better judgment, I felt myself respond,
felt the heat begin to grow in my core.

I’d
thought that the consequences of the one time I’d given in had dampened any
actual urges that I had to act on my desire.

I
was wrong.

“I’ve
missed you.” His voice was quiet. As he unfolded his arms and stepped toward me
panic flared brightly, and my thoughts swirled.

I
wanted so badly to take his words at face value. But I couldn’t stop the memory
of his face, of the accusation in his eyes, when I’d told him what had happened
to Ella. When I’d told him
why
it had happened.

He
blamed me. Of course he did. I blamed myself.

There
was no way he was happy to see me. Which meant that when he looked at me, he
saw someone else.

“Are
you actually happy to see me, Dylan?” The words were hard to force out of my
dry throat. I felt like I should cry, but I was suddenly just too tired. “Or
are you seeing her?”

He
stared at me as if I’d struck him. I stared back.

Seeing
Dylan was a reminder. I wasn’t the same as I’d once been. I wasn’t going to go
fade into a corner.

I
just wasn’t that girl anymore.

“Are
you fucking kidding me?” His voice was suddenly raw, and in that moment I could
see my own grief over Ella, reflected back at me.

He
took another step toward me. I wanted to fling myself into his arms, to give in
to the need that had haunted my every step while I was away.

Instead
I did what good Kaylee would have done. I pushed away from the siren call of
his embrace, and I ran.

“J
esus,
Mom.” The next morning I rubbed a hand over bleary eyes as I shoved aside the
plastic bags from the grocery store in search of the coffee pot. My mom was
still in bed, but I felt the need to chastise her anyway. Never mind that she
was still sleeping and couldn’t hear me.

I
found the coffeepot in a corner of the counter, and dust an inch thick sat on
top of it. My heart sank as I took the pieces apart to wash them in the sink.

My
mom had once been one of those people who, like me, couldn’t function until
after their second or third cup of hot caffeine. It spoke of how sick she’d
become that she didn’t bother using her percolator anymore.

Lips
pursed and the coffee pot cleaned, I reassembled it and filled it with the
paper filter and grounds that I’d gotten at the store that morning. While the
coffee brewed and I inhaled the comforting aroma, I unpacked the groceries that
I’d just purchased.

Eggs,
milk, canned soup. Bread, bacon and apples. Though in my head I could hear Ella
sneering at me, I knew that I’d chosen what I had in an attempt to get some
nutrition into my sickly looking mom.

She
might eat it, she might not. But at least I’d have tried.

As
for myself, once I was done wiping dust out of the cupboards, I poured myself a
giant mug of coffee, contemplated adding milk, and decided that I was feeling
too lazy. My roommate Serena had always given me a hard time for my habit of
taking my coffee however I could get it, but it worked for me. I ripped open
the giant bag of nacho chips I’d bought and pulled myself up to sit on the
counter.

Screw
nutrition for myself. I was stressed.

After
five minutes the salt and the caffeine began to work their magic. I topped it
off with a long, twisted piece of black licorice, which most people despised
but that I loved, then sighed deeply, raking fingers through the snarled hair
of a sleepless night.

It
was too quiet here. Fish Lake was surrounded by mountains, by verdant branches
and leaves. The sounds at night were of coyotes and crickets, rather than the
urban hustle I’d become used to in Connecticut.

Yes,
that
was why I hadn’t been able to sleep. I was going to tell myself
that until I believed it.

I
looked out the window at the giant apple tree that dominated our yard. In a few
months it would be full of fruit that would fall and rot with no one to take
care of it, but right now held nothing but promise.

It
reminded me of how it felt to be pressed against the rough bark by sure hands.
Of how the hollow in the trunk cradled my head just perfectly when my mouth was
being devoured by someone who made my pulse race.

Roughly
I pushed those thoughts away. It wasn’t going to do me any good to think of
Dylan. He wasn’t ever going to be able to look at me again without thinking of
Ella. And I wasn’t ever going to be able to look at him and be sure that he was
seeing me and not my twin.

Full
of my junk food breakfast, I sipped at my coffee, savoring the jolt to my
senses. I guessed that my mom wouldn’t be up for hours still—I’d looked in on
her this morning when I’d finally given up the struggle to sleep. She’d been
curled on her side, her hands tucked beneath her cheek, her breathing shallow
but steady.

Seeing
my mother look so fragile made an invisible fist around my heart squeeze. I was
already weighed down by guilt, and seeing the woman who had given me life
grasping so tenuously at reality was hard.

Should
I have stayed, instead of running away three years ago?

I
supposed the better question was,
could
I have?

Had
we ever actually been happy?
It wasn’t the first
time I’d wondered this in the last few years, but for once I tentatively let
the notion come out of hiding to be poked at and examined.

It
didn’t seem like so long ago that my mom, my dad, my sister and I had all lived
under this roof, and now it was down to just my mom—my dad lived a few towns
over, with his girlfriend of the moment, who likely wasn’t much older than I
was. Cliche, but true.

Yes,
it didn’t seem like so long ago... and yet it seemed like an entirely different
lifetime.

When
Ella and I had been in our early teens, our dad had gotten a promotion and had
started to make a lot more money. Had started to work late. Until then my mom
had enjoyed drinking, but hadn’t depended on alcohol to get her through the
day.

And
as our parents’ marriage had become more and more dysfunctional, Ella and I had
starting gravitating towards the opposite poles to which we would stubbornly
cling throughout our teens. She became a party girl, the daughter who would
sneak out the window and climb down the apple tree to drink and experiment with
drugs. She’d made a new set of friends—and Dylan had been part of that group.

They’d
been inseparable, two badasses who did whatever they wanted. Just friends, or
so they’d claimed, but the kind whose friendship had little room for anyone
else. And while I became the good daughter, the glue that held our family
together at the seams, I secretly longed to be Ella, just so that I could be
around the guy who fascinated me like no one ever had.

Setting
my now empty coffee mug on the counter with a sharp clack, I slid off the
counter, shaking the memories away like a wet dog trying to dry itself.

With
the clarity of hindsight, I could now see that maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t been
as good as I’d once believed myself to be. After all, my desire for Dylan McKay
hadn’t been good at all.

“I
need to get out of here.” The house was deafening in its silence. There was too
much room in the empty space for my thoughts to fill.

The
problem was, I had no idea where to go.

***

T
he
waters of Fish Lake were still cold right now, in the early days of summer. I
shivered as I looked down at the stretch of pebbles and sand on which I’d
played for countless hours when I was kid.

The
early morning breeze was warm, but I shivered regardless as I stripped off the
tank top and shorts that I’d pulled on over my bathing suit. Leaving them
strewn carelessly on the sand, I made my way to the edge of the water, rocks
digging into the feet and making my gait unsteady. I knew that not all of the
good bumps that prickled over my pale skin were because of a chill.

I’d
had to work very hard to not let myself be taken under by an irrational fear of
water after Ella... well.

I’d
fought through the worst of it, refusing to succumb when I knew exactly where
the sudden terror had come from. But I still had to push through a thin barrier
that rose, every time I confronted a body of it—a pool, a pond, a lake.

I
ground my teeth together as I stepped forward, letting the ripples of water lap
at my toes, then my ankles. Sucking in a mouthful of air, I ran forward into
the lake until the water was deep enough to submerge myself in. The cold was
shocking, cleansing me of the cloying fear and reminding me of who I was.

I
was Kaylee. I was the one who had survived.

Diving
forward, I began to swim. Though I hated exercise, and poked fun at my friend
Serena every time she taught a yoga class or went for a run, swimming was
something that I made myself do once every few weeks. I told myself that it was
because I needed to work off the the booze, the late night instant noodles, the
ice cream that I downed every time that Joel and I broke up.

In
the deepest, darkest corners of myself, I knew that I made myself do it so that
I didn’t wind up like Ella. I refused to succumb to the water the way she had.

I
swam until my lungs burned and my muscles trembled with fatigue. Laughing
breathlessly when I surfaced, I slicked the excess water out of my curls and,
shading my eyes against the sun that was still rising high, treaded water as I
scanned the shore.

I
was still alone. Mostly alone, I hastily amended as I caught sight of someone
jogging with a massive dog at the far end of the sand.

A
male someone, my brain automatically noted. A tall male someone, with muscles
that made saliva pool in my mouth.

The
sun glinted off of hair the color of honey, and the saliva suddenly dried up.

Shit
.
It was Dylan.

I
started towards the shore then stopped, dunking myself back into the water. My
movements caught his eye, and he squinted out at me, his steps slowing, then
stopping as he recognized me.

Pinching
my lips together, I forced myself to move forward. I couldn’t hide from him out
here.

“Kaylee.”
As I’d been expecting, there was no readily apparent emotion on his face as he
watched me walk hesitantly out of the lake. His stare was fastened to me as I
emerged, though, and I felt my skin begin to heat underneath his gaze.

I
knew that most people who saw me swimming here would have expected me to wear a
sensible one piece. The trouble with that, however, was that I no longer owned
one. And as Dylan kept that inscrutable stare on me, I became incredibly aware
of the fact that I was naked except for my miniscule red bikini.

The
silence stretched between us, and I felt that heat pool again in my belly, made
all the more uncomfortable because I had no idea what he was thinking.

“You’re
jogging,” I finally offered. If I had been talking to anyone else, this would
have sounded like the most obvious thing in the world.

But
I was talking to Dylan the badass, the guy who fixed up cars with his friend
Jax, who drank domestic beer and who maybe, maybe lifted weights, if he did
anything to sculpt the ridiculously cut body that he’d always had.

“I
jog every day.” His voice gave nothing away. I watched as he combed his long
fingers through those sweat dampened spikes of hair, and felt my pulse ratchet
up a notch.

“Isn’t
that kind of counterproductive? Jogging, but smoking?” I’d rarely seen Dylan
without a cigarette since he was fifteen... though he didn’t seem to have one
on him now.

“Gave
it up.” He nodded at me, picked up a stick, and threw it for the massive dog
that was dancing around, eyeing the water with distaste.

I
swallowed hard when I saw the muscles of his arms ripple with the movement.
Bad
Kaylee
. I needed to work harder to get over this... whatever the hell
this
was.

There
was entirely too much baggage standing between us. An entire person’s worth, to
be precise.

“You
gave it up?” I parroted. A gust of wind blew over the water, hitting my wet,
bare skin, and I shivered with the chill.

“Didn’t
you bring a towel?” There, finally—there was some emotion. Of course, it was in
the form of a glare as he looked around the beach and found nothing but my
discarded shorts and top.

I’d
forgotten to bring one. It wasn’t nearly the big deal he was making it sound
like with his tone.

Before
I could even answer his question, he fisted the hem of his t-shirt in his hands
and lifted it up and over his head.

My
mouth fell open when a torso that was harder and more defined than anything I
could ever have imagined came into view. I’d run my fingers over that skin
once, my touch tentative, but I’d never seen it bare in front of my eyes.

The
fact that Ella likely had caused a seed of jealously buried deep inside of me
to sprout and begin to unfurl. God, I was the world’s worst person. I was
jealous of my dead sister, the sister to whom this gorgeous creature had
belonged in the first place.

Then
Dylan handed me the slightly damp shirt, and I lost the capacity for rational
thought.

“I
haven’t been jogging very long. It shouldn’t be too sweaty.” Stooping, he
picked up the stick that the dog had returned to him and threw it again. The
movement picked up the light and cast every rippled of those abs into sharp
relief.

His
belly was completely flat, the jut of his hipbones concave.

My
mouth watered, and my fingers itched to touch.

“My
job doesn’t allow us to smoke.”

It
took a minute before I realized that he was continuing the thread of our
conversation from minutes earlier, before he’d stripped. But as he spoke his
eyes flickered down to my breasts, to where nipples that were taut with the
cold were clearly visible through the thin fabric.

They
became taut for another reason entirely as I hurried to slide my arms into the
t-shirt. It was baggy, hitting me mid thigh, but the warmth was more than
welcome.

And
the scent it released... I wanted to bury my nose in the folds and inhale. It
was that scent I’d picked up the night before, the one that was so uniquely
him, that was burned into my mind forever.

I
wrapped my arms around myself, ostensibly to warm myself further, but really to
push that scent right into my skin.

“Does
Jax have a new rule about smoking?” I frowned as I shifted my weight from one
foot to the other. Last I knew, Dylan worked for his friend Jax at
Automovation, the shop Jax had inherited from his dad. The kind of guys who
were employed there wouldn’t be real impressed if they weren’t allowed to drink
beer and smoke when closing time neared.

“I
don’t work for Jax anymore.” Dylan’s eyebrows rose slightly as he spoke, and I
saw that he wasn’t going to volunteer any more information. Though I was dying
to know what he was doing now, I didn’t intend to be the one to break down and
ask.

“And
you have a dog.” I watched as he hunkered down to rub the belly of the dog who,
clearly exhausted, had returned from the last trip fetching the stick to flop
on its back at Dylan’s face.

“This
is Poose.” He scratched the dog along the rump, and the dog looked up at him
like she would do anything for him. Anything at all.