“That’s what the old man wants. That’s what the car was all about. He gave me the Mercedes as an ‘engagement present.’ Trouble is, I’m not engaged.”
“Yet.”
He touched her arm. “Ever. At least not to Wynona.”
“She’s pretty.”
He snorted. “Do you think so?”
“Mmm.” She shivered. What was she doing out here alone with him discussing the physical attributes of the woman he was supposed to marry?
“Well, so does she.”
“Does…does she think you’re getting married?”
He scowled. “It’s hard to know what Wynona thinks, but I have a feeling that she’d do just about anything to get a piece of the old man’s fortune. Marrying me would be the easy way.”
Nadine’s heart shattered into a million pieces. Hayden talked about marriage as if it were a prize with which to bargain. She considered her parents’ union and knew that wedded bliss was something straight out of fairy tales. Yet she was enough of a romantic to believe that somewhere true love had to exist. It just had to!
She thought of Hayden kissing Wynona, touching her as he’d caressed Nadine, and her stomach roiled painfully. A question loomed between them and she told herself not to ask it, yet she had to know the truth. “You said you weren’t a virgin.”
He didn’t respond.
“Have you…did you…with Wynona?”
Clearing his throat, he grabbed her arm, causing her to stop walking. “Never.”
“But—”
“There was another girl.”
“Trish London,” Nadine guessed.
“So the word got around.” He started walking again, his fingers linked with hers. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Nadine. At least in Gold Creek. People like to stretch the truth.”
She knew instinctively that the subject was closed.
* * *
HAYDEN WALKED HER home. Over her protests, he insisted on seeing that she was safely on her back porch where he kissed her gently, then jogged back toward the road. She watched until he disappeared into the night. After assuring herself that he was really gone, she ran through the drizzle to the tree and climbed to the branch near her window. Carefully, so as not to make any noise, she slipped over the ledge and landed softly on the bare floor.
Letting out her breath, she began yanking off her soaked Nikes, but stopped short when she heard the click of a lighter and watched in horror as her mother, leaning against the bureau, lit a cigarette. The tiny flame gave Donna’s face a yellow, haggard appearance, and her lips were pulled into a deep frown as she drew in on the first smoke she’d inhaled in over five years.
Nadine’s heart nearly stopped. She was caught. There was no way around it.
“Want to tell me where you’ve been?” Donna asked, white smoke drifting from her mouth and nostrils as she clicked the lighter shut.
“At the lake.”
“With?”
“I went by myself,” Nadine said, sidestepping the lie.
“What did you do there?”
“Took a ride in Ben’s boat.”
“Hmm.” Another long, lung-burning drag on the cigarette. The tip glowed red, the only light in the room. The smell of burning tobacco mixed with rainwater. “Where?”