Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(28)
Ginger leaned back, looking up at Woodman’s face, and for the first time she noticed the reddish-purple bruise on his cheek. She reached up and brushed her fingers against it gently, and he flinched.
“Y’all fought?”
Woodman scanned her face, trying to figure out how she’d feel about that, but she kept her expression cool, wanting his honesty. Finally he nodded. “He deserved it.”
Her lips twitched as she shook her head in disapproval. “How does the other guy look?”
“Split lip. Bleedin’ nose.”
A small, unladylike snort of laughter escaped through her lips. “Is it terrible that I’m glad?”
“If the image of Cain bleedin’ makes you smile, darlin’, I would have beat him up years ago.”
“Woodman,” she said softly, sliding her hand down his arm and weaving her fingers through his. “What am I goin’ to do with you?”
“How about lettin’ me take you to homecomin’?” He shrugged, looking down at his tux, then catching her eyes with a grin. “I’m a little overdressed for the club. And you are too beautiful to stay home alone tonight.”
Part of her did want to stay home. Part of her wanted to throw her dress in the fireplace, change into pajamas, and cry herself to sleep. Besides the fact that her kiss with Cain—which had meant so much to her—meant absolutely nothing to him, it must have sucked, which made her feel embarrassed. What a foolish little girl, thinking an experienced man like Cain would be swept off his feet by her inexperienced kiss, content to take her to a stupid high school dance on his last night home. What a ridiculous, naive child to think that a kiss that had shaken the foundation of her world could mean anything to him.
She looked up at Woodman’s sparkling eyes and managed a smile for him.
Here was Woodman, dressed to the nines. He’d beaten up Cain, picked his mother’s sacred flowers into a bouquet, and raced over to her house to comfort her and take her to a dance. He was leaving for boot camp tomorrow, but he was choosing to spend his last night at home with her.
The sun slipped below the horizon, bathing the farm in a gold and lavender half-light, and Ginger looked closely at Woodman, at his burnished blond hair and handsome smile. He didn’t have the dangerous flash and flare of Cain, but maybe she hadn’t been looking closely enough all these years. Maybe Woodman, whom she’d friend-zoned for so long, deserved more of a chance.
“You sure you want to spend your last night at home with me?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“Baby,” he drawled, sounding so much like Cain, she almost could have closed her eyes and tricked herself into believing he was here, after all, “ain’t nothin’ in the world I’d like more.”
***
Two hours later, she was flushed and happy, holding Woodman’s hands on the dance floor and hollering along with her classmates to a jazzed-up version of the Apple Valley fight song. Giggling with glee as she stumbled over the words, Ginger looked up as yet another popular high school senior approached them, politely interrupting their dance to have a short word with Woodman.
Here was something new she’d learned tonight: Woodman was popular. And not just popular, but stratospherically popular, well liked, respected, and admired. Never having attended high school at the same time as the cousins, Ginger had not had a firsthand opportunity to see how the teens of Apple Valley regarded them. But she’d lost count of the number of people, students and teachers alike, who’d stopped by to wish Woodman good luck at boot camp.
He shook the senior’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder, telling him to behave himself and “kick Canton’s ass all over the field” next week. Ginger watched with a growing mix of fascination and pride. He was, by far, the highlight of the dance for everyone there, and he was her date. Hers.
He’d also saved her bacon tonight, showing up when he did. If he hadn’t, she’d have sat on that old porch swing for hours, waiting for Cain, finally dissolving into pitiful tears when she realized she’d been stood up. She would have missed the dance, her new dress would be ashes, and she’d be huddled under the covers now, feeling beyond worthless. Instead she was at the dance with the uncrowned king—and instead of being Cain’s princess, she was Woodman’s queen.
She thought back to her twelfth birthday as he grinned at her, taking her hands for another rock-and-roll song. Although Woodman had held her hand and hugged her a million times since that afternoon on the driveway when he gave her the charm bracelet, that was the first and last time that her feelings for him had edged, just a touch, into the realm of more. Until now.
For years, she’d been pining for Cain, when right smack in front of her was the whole package: Woodman, in all his golden-boy goodness, was hers for the taking.
Placing her hands on his warm face, she pulled him to her until her lips grazed his ear. “It’s so hot in here. Can we go outside?”
When she drew back, his eyes were darker and less playful, his glance flicking to her lips before he nodded. “Sure.”
Still holding her hand, he pulled her through the crowd of dancing students, stopping whenever a girl wanted to kiss his cheek or a boy wanted to shake his hand. She wondered if he’d taken her right hand by design so that he wouldn’t have to drop it, and gradually she realized that his thumb was rubbing slow, soothing circles on her skin. She concentrated on his hypnotic touch, getting lost in it, even as the music thumped and Woodman’s cheerful voice thanked every other student for his or her good wishes. Surrounded by a hundred or more moving bodies, she was aware only of him—the soft touch of callused skin, rubbing, lulling her into a simultaneous state of bonelessness and hyperawareness.