Saint Sloan (Saint Sloan #1)(41)

Sloan had to laugh at the memory now: big strapping jock unable to get the combination lock on his new locker to open, the guys standing around him, Darcy included, laughing. He wasn’t amused, and she wondered if they’d known what they knew now, if they would have laughed so hard.

She stopped dead in her tracks. Wait. Darcy had said she knew Sloan’s combination to her locker because they had been best friends and she’d seen her open it numerous times.

That was her junior locker, not her senior one. When they were seniors, Darcy hated her. She’d never been to her locker except to taunt her, and she sure hadn’t opened her locker in front of her.

Darcy had lied. To her face, lied. So how did she really know the combination to her locker? And why?

The late bell rang, and she started toward her next class. She only made it two steps when she turned around and marched back to the office. When she got inside, she smiled politely at Mrs. Baker, the secretary, and signed her name and the time out. She was eighteen now and legally could check herself out of school. Next to the reason, she wrote sick.

“Feel better soon.” The short, slender lady smiled from behind the counter.

“I will. Thank you,” Sloan said with her best impression of a sick person.

With that, Sloan left the office, went down the hallway, exited the building, and went to her car at the far end of the lot. It might be crazy, but for the first time, she knew what she had to do and how she had to do it. There was no sense running from any of this. She knew exactly who she had to talk with to get answers.

She unlocked her car door and slid inside. With her foot on the brake, she pushed the start button, causing the Charger to roar to life. Determined, she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road out of town. Once the businesses turned into houses and houses into farmland, Sloan turned left onto Brown Hollow Road, down a road she hadn’t been on since that November night she’d rather forget.

A few miles down she saw a two-story white farmhouse sitting off the road. With her heart beating a mile a minute in her chest, she slammed on her brakes.

What was she doing?

This was Boyd’s house. Boyd Lawrence. The same guy who’d tried to rape her twice and then tried to kill her. The same guy she’d put in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. She rubbed her eyes, trying to figure out if she was thinking clearly. It had been a few hours since she’d taken the headache medicine, and she didn’t really feel like she needed it. Didn’t mean she didn’t want it though.

This might be a bad situation and hurting didn’t appeal to her.

Then again, neither did being dizzy.

Steadying every nerve she had, she eased her foot back onto the gas and rolled toward the house. She turned next to the black mailbox, the one where she’d stood the first time she’d met Aaron. That night wasn’t her favorite. Boyd had been having a party and she’d known she shouldn’t have gone, but Mackenzie had wanted to go, so she’d gone too. Darcy had gotten drunk and had cornered her in a bathroom, spouting all sorts of horrible things at her — not to mention the beer she’d thrown in her face.

Sloan had run all the way to the bottom of the driveway. Aaron had pulled up in his dark blue Mustang. He’d recognized her, but she hadn’t him. It hadn’t been her fault. She hadn’t seen him in about ten years.

She’d been so nervous to be around him that night, but had accepted a ride home so Mackenzie wouldn’t have to leave Travis. Her life had changed that night. Some for the better. Some for the worse. One thing was for sure: Sloan didn’t get regret getting in the car with him. And she didn’t regret meeting Ray. What she did regret was what happened to Boyd: being in a wheelchair all of his life. She regretted him going nuts and attacking her, just because they’d broken up — just because he’d thought she deserved it.

Boyd’s life was changed forever now, stuck in that wheelchair and facing charges. It was his fault of course; he’d been the one who’d attacked her. Still, Sloan couldn’t help feeling like she’d egged him on somehow.

Stupid guilt.

She slammed her hands against the steering wheel to knock some sense into herself. “He’s the bad guy here, Sloan. He attacked you. Don’t you go getting all soft.”

With her foot back on the gas, she drove to the head of the driveway and put the car into park. It looked like it always had: house with white siding, large front porch with the swing she and Boyd swung on when they’d dated. They’d had their first kiss there. They’d also gone to more bases than she cared to admit on that swing.

Mr. Lawrence’s car was missing, which made sense since he’d supposedly gone away on a business trip. An Explorer sat in the driveway with spiny seeds from the maple trees — a sure sign of spring — on the windshield and hood. Boyd’s shiny black truck sat off to the side. The truck he’d never drive again. The first time they’d ever slept together was in that truck, way in the back of the hollow, next to the Falls. It hadn’t been anything to write home about. It sort of hurt and was a bit uncomfortable. It wasn’t her first time. Far from it, but still… it hadn’t been the best-feeling experience in her life. He hadn’t seemed to notice though. Now that she thought back on it, he’d never even asked her if she’d had a good time. Just pulled his clothes together and started back home. The roar of Chapel Falls had faded behind them.