The Line That Binds (27 page)

“Yeah. Do you think it’s somewhere in my bedroom?”

“Yeah, and hopefully it opens as easily as the entrance,” he said then stopped. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” I whispered with a light cough, inhaling too much dust. I strained my ears and heard mumbling behind the wall. “Is that my dad and Gavin?”

“Sounds like it. I hope your dad doesn’t decide to go to the basement to check on us.”

“It won’t happen. Gavin might, but not my dad.”

We moved up two more planks before Ben stopped again. I heard a soft knock from his hand hitting the wood and then light flooded the tunnel, uncoiling the tightness in my chest. More dust kicked up with the disturbance, swirling around me as I ascended the last ladder rungs. I looked up into a group of clothes hanging beside Ben’s dark brown eyes as they peered down at me. He extended his hand to help me out.

“My closet. Seriously?”

He slid my clothes along the rod, making room for us to stand. “It’s pretty well hidden back in this corner. I’m not surprised no one noticed it.” He ran his hand over my clothes, stopping to eye a black, strapless A-line dress. He pinched the satin waist ribbon between his fingers and looked at me. “Nice.”

“Thanks. It’s one of the only dresses I kept.” I wouldn’t tell him the main reason it made the cut was because it still fit my squishy butt.

“Maybe I’ll get to see it on you one day.”

“I thought I looked better without dresses and pedicures?” I asked with my hands on my hips.

“Anything you wear now will undoubtedly look better.” His gaze met mine and he lifted an alluring brow.

“Nice cover,” I replied, pushing past him through the closet door with a smile I wouldn’t let him see. His answer was so sweet that I didn’t want to consider it real. But inside I was overjoyed. I could hear Dad and Gavin’s muffled voices downstairs so I tiptoed to close the bedroom door.

Ben stood by my bed. Light shined through the windows behind him, like a sublime message, outlining his amazing physique. “It wasn’t a cover. I guess I’ll have to find a way to prove it to you eventually. For now though, I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay up here. It’s cool that your dad is letting me help you clean the basement, alone, but for some reason I don’t think he’d be thrilled to catch me in your room.”

I sauntered over to him, staring at the way his plain gray T-shirt fit the shape of his upper body. I splayed my fingers over one of his biceps and smiled. “Sissy.”

He smiled so big that his dimples creased deep into his cheeks. I ran a finger to the side of his face so I could feel one. He let out an amused breath. “Maybe I am a sissy,” he said, glancing around the room. His eyes stopped on the picnic basket on the top of my bed.

“You always
talk
a big game,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his back, drawing his eyes back to me.

“What can I say? It’s a bad habit.”

“Bad, huh?” I asked, walking him to the bed. He pressed his lips together to suppress a new smile as the back of his knees touched the mattress. I smirked and pushed his stomach, forcing him to fall onto the bed. He turned his face to watch where he landed then cocked his head curiously.

I followed his gaze to the light green T-shirt bunched at the corner of the bed, behind the picnic basket.

Oh, no.

I covered my face with my hands as he stretched across the bed to grab it.
This is so humiliating.

“Nice shirt,” he said with a breathy laugh as he sat up straight.

“Yeah,” I squeaked out and finally dropped my hands. The room was suddenly ten times warmer and my cheeks were to blame.

He took in my embarrassment with a wry smile. “Did someone give this to you?”

I shook my head with a timid smile of my own. The humiliation alone was enough to drive me mad, but the spark in his eyes nearly sent me running for the closet to hide.

“So tell me,” he said, his voice low, humorless. “Are you sleeping with my shirt intimately or is it just up near your pillow for some other reason, like to catch drool or something?”

I turned my face toward the closet and his hand reached up to my waist, bringing my attention back to him. “I don’t drool when I sleep,” I replied, possibly even more mortified.

“So, what is it then? Did you just throw it there?”

I shook my head slowly and pinched my lips.

“Hmm. Maybe you were upset and needed my shirt’s shoulder to cry on?”

“You aren’t going to stop until I say it, are you?”

“Nope,” he said with a wicked smirk.

“I slept in it last night. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?” I whispered shamefully.

He dropped his eyes to the shirt for a moment and he took a deep breath. When he lifted his face again, he tugged my waist closer. “Good God. I am not going to be able to stop thinking about that for a long time. I probably won’t be able to get it out of my head until I see it with my own eyes.”

I let out a relieved breath. “You don’t think I’m a psycho for wearing your shirt to bed?”

“No, I still think you’re a psycho,” he deadpanned.

I smacked his arm. “Shut up!”

He laughed. “Seriously, though. What I said before was true: you look far better in anything you wear now. But nothing, and I mean nothing, will look as good as how I’m picturing this shirt on you. In my opinion, of course.” He tossed the shirt back on the bed and grabbed the other side of my waist, gripping the sides of my jeans with clenched fingers, drawing me farther between his spread legs.

I leaned down to him and pressed my lips softly to his, reveling in the way he made me feel. It had always been so different with other guys. They usually tried to be quick, with no couth and no care. Ben was in my skin, in my head, and already close to getting into my heart. As our lips moved together, I threw my knees over his legs and straddled his lap.

“Oh,” he said quietly against my lips. “This feels unbelievable, but let’s not get carried away.” He lifted me by the waist and flipped me onto the bed beside him.

My body knocked the basket over, spilling some contents onto the tan comforter. I rolled back up to a seated position and laughed. “Is it your jaw again?”

“No. My jaw is fine.”

“Then I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. That was only a kiss, nothing more.”

He pivoted his body and looked at the basket’s items as I scooped some up. “Were you testing me?” he asked, his focus still on the items.

“Yeah, just testing,” I agreed with smile. I wasn’t going to hit the sheets with him after having just kissed him yesterday. Even though my body was screaming to be closer to him, I had never done anything that quickly before and I doubted I’d try to start setting records now, especially in the middle of the day with my brother and father downstairs.

“In that case, feel free to test me whenever you’d like,” he said, then flipped a couple of pictures between his fingers. “These are the pictures you found yesterday?”

“Yeah, I was looking at them earlier. They were all taken before I was born.”

“What’s this?” He picked up the skeleton key.

“A key to something. And this is a handkerchief,” I replied, holding up the frail, embroidered material. “I think the initials are for Charles Stockton.”

Ben eyed the yellowed handkerchief. “CS. It probably was his. And this …” He held up the key. “This is another secret I’m pretty sure I know about. C’mon, we’re going back downstairs.”

When LJ found the basket yesterday, it gave me hope something else would turn up. I scoured the barn’s loft after she’d gone home. It was an area that Pop and I had foolishly neglected before. I searched for a couple of hours and found nothing but the usual clutter. So this morning I knew I’d have to search the basement better than before, but I had no idea I’d find a trapdoor that led me to LJ’s skeleton key discovery. That key could be the one needed to open the blocked door that I never passed through as a kid, and that door might be blocking more secrets than a hidden tunnel way.

The excitement of the discovery also brought apprehension. The thought of having LJ with me if I were to find something was unnerving. She didn’t know anything. It didn’t matter whether the curse was real or not, she didn’t know about any of it. Despite ignoring me for most of the week, she seemed fine, especially yesterday, which made me question the curse again. But there was still that miniscule chance it was all real. That was enough motivation to keep focused on the search, when now all I really wanted to focus on was my new favorite mental image of LJ wearing nothing but my T-shirt to bed.

I helped her down into the trapdoor and waited for her to clear a few ladder rungs before I followed. Like I’d done on the way up, I ran my hand along all of the support boards again on the way down.
Still nothing out of the ordinary.

“I guess that could come in handy if I want to do some late-night laundry,” she said, walking over to the washer as I closed the trapdoor.

“As long as the machines don’t need to be fixed,” I joked, sliding a box back in place.

“Well, ha ha,” she said impassively. “Are you blocking the ladder again?”

“No, I’ll leave enough space for you to climb between boxes in case you decide to partake in a little late-night assault and battery.”

“Okay, no more washer bashing. I promise. Anyway, I’ll probably only use it to hide from my father, or freak Gavin out.” She tossed the damp clothes into the dryer. “So, History Buff, do you think that coffin-sized hatchway was part of The Underground Railroad? Could the Stockton’s really have hidden slave refugees in that little of a space?” She turned the dryer on and helped me move the last box.

I stared at the wall opposite the ladder, examining an empty bookcase and a several stacks of boxes that concealed every inch of gray concrete behind them. It was facing west, toward my house. “I’m positive that’s what it was used for, but it wasn’t the only area,” I answered.

“Are you talking about the hiding spot you never shared with me last week?” She stared at me, confused. “What are you looking at?”

I shifted a few boxes to get closer to the wall then peeked behind the bookcase.
Bingo!
The other door. “Help me move these boxes, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied. “Where?”

“Let’s add a row to the side wall. We’ll leave some here, to keep this camouflaged.”

“To keep what camouflaged?” she asked.

I moved the last box then slid one side of the antique bookcase toward me, revealing a narrow oak door settled deep into a cutout in the concrete wall. “This.”

“No way!” she yelled and quickly covered her mouth.

“I’ve been on the other end of this. When I first moved here, I did a little exploring. As you can see though, this end was blocked, probably for a long time.”

“So wait. You’ve been on the other side? Does this go to your house?”

I nodded. “The door on my end was unlocked, this one wasn’t. I never found the key.” I smiled at her and held the key between us.

“Do you think it’s safe? It’s underground. What if it collapses if it hasn’t already?”

“I guess we’re going to find out,” I said, adjusting the bookcase, leaving just enough room to slide behind. I squeezed into the small cutout and inserted the key, turning it until the door latch relented. “And we’re in. C’mon.”

LJ moved beside me as I pushed the door open into the blackness. “Oh.” She took a tentative step backward. “I’m not sure I can do this, Ben.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on a flashlight app, beaming the LED down the tunnel. “Do you have yours?”

“Yeah,” she said, pulling her phone out and doing the same.

The lights were bright enough to see at least twenty feet in front of us, yet LJ grabbed a hold of my arm as if she were suddenly blind. “Are you okay?” I asked, leaning closer to her hair. I inhaled her almond scent, but it was quickly trumped by the heavy smell of wet dirt.

“Those wooden support beams are really old, right?” Her hand tightened around my bicep nervously.

“I think that if they haven’t given out yet, they’re pretty solid,” I replied, walking to the first wooden beam dug into the side of the dirt wall. Hundreds more lined the entire passageway. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do this.”

“No,” she said, breathing out a long steady flow of air. “God, this place has really highlighted my
best
traits,” she added sarcastically before pulling in an audible breath. “I can do this.”

“You’re sure? It’s really not that big of a deal.”

“No, I want to. I get to walk through a tunnel that nobody has set foot in for years, possibly decades before you did as a kid. That’s a pretty big deal.”

“All right.” I smiled at her excitement.

We swept our phones’ lights back and forth along the slender path. Spiders and centipedes hurried along the support beams to escape our intrusion on their eternally darkened lives. LJ walked at an angle beside me while I knocked down large spiderwebs. I tried to keep my pace fast enough to ease her fear, but slow enough to search the walls, ceiling, and floor without raising suspicion. She didn’t seem to notice. Her breaths were slow and steady as she tried to keep calm. I admired how she faced her fear, no matter the severity. It took a lot of courage to do, yet she probably wouldn’t see it that way. Moving here had stripped her whole world and possibly any strength she’d had in her previous life.