Preston's Honor(9)

My breath caught. I took the small piece of broken glass and put it in the pocket of my swim trunks. When I looked back at her, her gaze was running down my naked chest. Her eyes blinked up to mine and her cheeks filled with color before she looked away, back down to where she held her own half of the glass heart. Was she looking at me with the same awareness that I watched her? At the mere possibility, my whole body suddenly felt far too hot. My eyes moved to her mouth—those full luscious lips with the small beauty mark at the corner—and I grew painfully hard. I wanted to kiss her so badly. It was a yearning not only in my body but in my heart.

“Why do you have to leave?” I asked. “You could stay.”

She shook her head, a look of pain crossing her expression. “Don’t you want to experience the world?” she asked, leaning back on one elbow and gazing at the trees.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” No. Something about not wanting more caused me embarrassment, as if Lia might look down on me if she knew that everything I ever wanted out of life was here. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing more, or at least nothing better. Everything that filled my soul was all around me—the land, the farm, my best friend and brother, and Annalia Del Valle.

You’re just like him.

I heard my mother’s voice in my head, the disappointment with which she said the words. Yes, I supposed I was just like my father. I loved farming, loved the smell of dirt and the way the tiny shoots pushed their way out of the ground. I took satisfaction in work that required the strength of my body and my own two hands. I felt a deep pride in our family business, knowing that the food we grew was shipped all over the United States, that a part of our labor of love was placed on dinner tables and in fancy restaurants, in grocery stores, and picnic baskets. For that, I was simple, I guessed. Simple, introverted, and far too serious, just exactly the way he was. And I didn’t know how to be any different even when I made a point to try.

According to my mother, my father had stifled her, given her a life that leeched the joy right out of her soul and left her a restless, dissatisfied person. At least that’s what I’d heard her say to Grandma Lois a few years ago before she’d died. Would I do the same to Lia? If I asked her to stay with me someday, would she lose her joy and become restless, too? I frowned slightly, disturbed by my own line of thinking.

“How are you liking high school so far?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. We were in school together now, but we’d never been before. She’d gone to different elementary and middle schools.

Her eyes lingered on me a beat too long, but then she shrugged, looking away. “It’s fine.”

“How come you never come over to sit with us at lunch? You never even say hi.”

She smiled, tilting her head, her dark curls falling over her shoulder and causing my breath to catch. “You’re all older and . . . I’m not part of that crowd.”

“You could be.”

She shook her head, looking away again, that same troubled frown reappearing. “No, I couldn’t be, even if I tried. Remember what happened when I tried to go blonde? It’s about parameters.”

I gave her a confused frown, the word pricking at my memory, though I couldn’t quite place it. “Parameters?”

She laughed softly. “Some things shouldn’t be forced, let’s put it that way.”

Her words saddened me. Did she think she wouldn’t be accepted if she hung out with us at school? I’d just assumed she’d rather sit with the people she sat with in the lunchroom—kind of a motley crew, but they were her friends. But if she was staying away from Cole and me in public because she thought we’d rather it be that way, I had to set her straight. The only reason we ever excluded her from anything—like the public pool—was if we thought it would make her feel awkward or put her in an uncomfortable position. “Lia—”

Cole let out a loud yawning moan and sat up, distracting me from what I’d been about to say. “How long was I out?”

“Not long.”

He sat up fully, running a hand through his hair. “We should go, Pres. We’re supposed to help Dad on the farm today.”

I nodded reluctantly. I could have stayed on that sunny rock for the rest of the afternoon, talking softly to Lia and listening to the lap of the creek as it ran past us. But there was never a lack of work to do on a farm and this had been meant only as a short break from the heat.

“I’ll walk you home,” I said to Lia as we all stood and began gathering our things. I didn’t know exactly where she lived but I knew the general direction.

“Don’t be silly. I’ve made the walk a thousand times.”

I pictured her walking through the farmlands and back roads, her long, browned legs moving swiftly, her dark curls flowing down her back, and felt the grip of protectiveness I’d always felt for Lia and usually wasn’t certain how to manage. She was so damned independent. So insistent on doing everything by herself. “I think—”

“Stop thinking so much,” she teased. “I’m fine. Anyhow, I have to go into town to pick up a few things for my mama so I’ll be on public roads the whole time.”

“Then I’ll go back to the farm and get our truck.” Dad had bought Cole and me a new truck on our seventeenth birthday. Even though we had to work out a schedule of who used it when, it was so much better than having to borrow our parents’ cars. And it worked out because Cole went out far more often than I did anyway. If he wanted to use it, it was generally available.