First Impressions Page 2

  I rolled my eyes. “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  At that moment, my aunt appeared, to announce that dinner was at last ready. I could smell the scents of it wafting from outside, where Uncle and his friends some of the others were manning the barbecue.

  “You two okay to start with salad?” she asked, frowning at us.

  I looked at Alex and he smiled back.

  “Sure,” he said. I nodded.

  “Of course.”

  When she'd gone he whispered to me. “I think I managed to get uncle to put some butternut squash on the barbecue. We won't starve. I promise.”

  “Whew.”

  We laughed and clicked our glasses and settled down to dinner.

  Throughout the evening I was aware, peripherally, of Jared. He didn't talk to many people, and he seemed inward and serious. I frowned at Alex but he held onto the story. He wasn't going to tell me until tomorrow.

  So until then I would have to wait and be in ignorance.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jared

  I sat in the yard and watched the sun light up the hillside.

  That was one of the reasons I'd chosen to come up here. The beauty. This landscape was amazing. For a kid who'd grown up in the concrete maze of inner-city LA, the place was something else.

  Not that my mind was that focused on the sunshine. I was more focused on the girl I met the other day.

  Alex's sister.

  I didn't know her name – Alex had forgotten to tell me – but I couldn't get my mind off of her.

  It wasn't just the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the lovely face or the stunning figure with the slim waist and full breasts and curvy hips. It was the way she'd looked at me. Like I was a human being. Like I could be better.

  People who have manners apologize.

  I chuckled, remembering that. Whew! She'd really put me on blast. I was surprised her family hadn't heard us – but then, there was enough noise in that tent for nothing to have carried over into the main part.

  I couldn't forget my happiness when she'd come over to chat more. I'd thought I'd blown it. That she'd have me evicted or something.

  The thought of her actually coming to talk to me was something I'd not imagined.

  Why would she want to talk to me? I looked down at my hands. Knotty with veins, corded with muscle, the knuckles of my right scarred from punching things – and people. That hand told me all I needed to know about myself. It told me that I wasn't exactly what I'd look for to meet my sister. Not that I'd know. I didn't have a sister.

  I basically didn't have a family.

  I had parents, for sure: A dad who screamed abusively at my mom, and me – whenever I showed up, which wasn't by choice very often – and a mom who'd been sober quite rarely. I didn't blame her. I hadn't wanted to be sober to see the stuff we saw.

  “Jared!”

  I looked up as Cody – my new colleague – called my name, startling me out of my thoughts.

  “Hey, Cody,” I said in a quiet voice. I didn't really want to be disturbed right now. Even though I knew he was right. We had to go work.

  “You turned out the barn?”

  “Sure I did,” I said, feeling a bit defensive. I'd been here two months. They didn't exactly have to still act like I was a newbie.

  “Sorry,” Cody said with a sigh. “I guess I'm just twitchy 'cos the boss is coming down.”

  “Oh.” I sighed, taking long, deep breaths. The boss was Mr. Haddon – the owner of the ranch. We worked it – Me, Cody, Jeff and Nichol. We were cowboys.

  Yeah, that seems weird. For a city boy, it was weird: but then, I wouldn't have ended up here if it hadn't been for Alex.

  “I guess I should relax, huh?” Cody sighed. “Not too much to do before we gotta go get them in again. Hey?”

  I chuckled. There was always plenty to do around the ranch – even now, I guess I should have been checking the barn, cleaning up a bit. But I wasn't.

  “We should go see what Nics is up to.”

  “Mm.”

  Like me, Cody didn't seem too interested in doing work today either. He looked like he was thinking about something else.

  “What?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Don't look like nothing.”

  He smiled. “It isn't nothing.”

  I guessed. It was a girl. Cody had been watching Dayna, a girl who lived in Green River and worked at the store – for weeks. We all knew about it. I guessed something had happened. Something good.

  Oddly, seeing Cody so cheerful made me wonder about myself. I wasn't exactly envious of his happiness – not exactly. I was just wondering. What would it be like, to feel like that? I couldn't have imagined it.

  Not until I saw her.

  I wanted to slap myself. Why was I being so dumb? I met a girl – not any girl – the sister of a guy who'd more or less saved me – at a party. We chatted.

  And now here I was, imagining her in bed with me?

  I blushed.

  “What?” Cody asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Don't look like...”

  “Stop it, Cody,” I said. I hadn't meant to be snappy – I like Cody and even when I'm in one of my really weird moods he can get through to me like no-one else can. But even so.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  I sighed. “It's not you,” I said more-reasonably. “It's me. I'm just...weird at the moment.”

  He chuckled. “Weird at the moment?”

  I scowled, but I was laughing. “Yeah. Fine. Weird. Always.”

  Cody laughed. “You're just fine,” he said kindly. He looked at me and then across to where Nics was appearing out of the barn.

  I nodded, brushing my jeans off and standing. “We should go.”

  “Mm.”

  We stood and headed over to the barn to help the others muck out.

  While I was busy shoveling ordure out of the stalls, I couldn't help but grin. I enjoyed this stuff. It sounded crazy. Compared to the place where I grew up, good, honest cow-dung was just that. Real.

  Yes, it smelled. Yes, the work was tedious. And demanding. But it was real.

  That is what I want in my life now.

  “Hey! Jared?”

  “What?” I asked. I looked up at Jeff and Cody where they were working just ahead of me.

  “Last one to get done's paying for lunch.”

  “What?” I stared. “Hey! Not fair!”

  We all laughed as I started frantically digging with renewed vigor. It wasn't like we earned a princely sum as it was. The thought of paying for all of them for lunch was quite an incentive to work faster.

  “I'm not paying for Nics,” I said. “He eats like a blast furnace.”

  We all laughed. Nichol actually looked shyly pleased. Cody gave him a shove, laughing.

  We all set to work with renewed speed.

  While I worked, I found my thoughts straying again to Alex's sister. Those blue eyes, those firm breasts. In my fantasy I was kissing her as she leaned against me, those fabulous curves in my arms...

  “Watch it, Jared!” Cody yelled. “You almost got hit just then.”

  I looked round with some horror, noting that I was in the direct line of fire for Jeff's dung shovel. I jumped back.

  They all laughed.

  “Hell! Never saw a body move so fast,” Jeff laughed. “Anyone would think it was poisoned.”

  I chuckled. “It's not far wrong,” I observed, taking in a big breath and coughing. They all laughed.

  We spent the next twenty minutes gritting our teeth, shoveling dung. Then Cody called a halt.

  “Hey, guys. Looks like we're done.”

  I blinked, looking around. He was right. We'd managed to clear up the small barn. I wasn't going to think about doing the big one – that could wait until after lunch.

  “Right. Let's call it a day.” Jeff stretched.

  We all nodded in approval. I flexed my arm, feeling the shoulder a
ching. One of the great things about farm-work, I admitted shyly to myself, was what it did for the body. I had always been tall and lean, but all this shoveling had added an extra thickness to my muscles, bulking out my shoulders and biceps in a way I'd never have expected. Even after two months, I felt like I'd really filled out.

  And the girls seemed to notice.

  “Hey, Jared,” Willerby, one of the waitresses in the place we usually ate, greeted me. Jeff whistled and I scowled. He stopped.

  “Will you guys leave it alone?” I asked, not particularly angrily, when she'd gone. Jeff gave me an apologetic nod.

  “Fine, Jared.”

  Our lunch appeared about ten minutes later and I ate with surprising hunger. We always had toasted sandwiches. I had ordered two, as had the rest of us. I was starved after the morning work.

  I thought about my reaction to Jeff's whistle, wondering why it had irritated me so. I guess because I wasn't really interested in Willerby. Yeah, she was pretty. She was sexy – I could appreciate that. But she didn't really, well... “connect” was the only word I could think of. Not with me, anyhow.

  Alex's sister did.

  I almost choked on the sandwich I was eating. I knew that was true. I also knew that Alex's sister was the one girl I could never have.

  Alex had saved me. That seemed melodramatic, but he had. He had seen me one day when I was on the street, really messed up. Callum had just died, about a month ago. I was drinking really hard then, barely affording it. In fact, I couldn't afford it. That day, I'd been considering moving on to something harder. I was struggling, because I still wanted to keep my promise – I thought of it as a promise – to Callum. To do something with my life.

  I'd just been sitting there, trying to focus my eyes out of a monstrous hangover, when this guy came up.

  “Excuse me,” he'd said. “I'm looking for Mitch's repair place?”

  I'd blinked at him. He was talking to me? This fancy-looking guy in a suit with neat-trimmed hair and a tie on? Most guys like him would have crossed the street to avoid me. And he wanted to ask me for directions?

  “Dunno,” I shrugged. He looked stressed. Something about that got to me. “Maybe that way?” I said. I actually pointed him in the right direction, too. Most often, if anyone asked me the direction to something I'd point them the wrong way, just for a laugh. But this guy really looked worried.

  “Thanks,” he said. He smiled at me. “You from ‘round here?”

  I shrugged. “Good as anywhere,” I'd said, non-committal. In fact, I wasn't. That particular part of town was pretty cool compared to where I'd grown up.

  “Oh. Well, maybe you could help me?” He'd said.

  Confused me, that did. Why was he trusting me? I mean, all I'd done was be there, messed up and on the sidewalk, and here he was actually trusting me?

  “Maybe,” I said. I was interested.

  “I'm looking for a guy to do some painting. You ever painted before?”

  I shrugged. I was baffled. What was this guy up to? Why was he standing here chatting with me? I looked at my hands, scarred and muscled, at my bare arms, with one or two bad tattoos. Why did he think I looked like I wanted to be a painter, or anything?

  I did want to, though.

  “Well,” he said, “if you do, come find me at Mitch's. I'm probably going to be in there for quite some time.”

  I stared after him. My head hurt. But I knew deep inside myself, with complete conviction, that I wanted to do as he suggested. I sat there in my aching, messed-up state for about a minute. Then I went to Mitch's.

  He was there. We chatted. He told me he had a friend who'd started a business and they needed some painting work. Would I go to their restaurant address on Saturday morning and say Alex sent me?

  Sure I would.

  I did.

  I did painting – not very well, to start with, but I learned. The job took four days in total, and on the last day, Matt, the restaurant guy, had come to have a look. I remember how he'd stood back and looked it over.

  “Not bad,” he said. “Actually, good.”

  “Thanks.”

  I remember how weird it had felt. It was the first time anyone had praised me for something before. It was amazing.

  We chatted for a while. He asked me some stuff. My life, where I lived, what I did. I answered him honestly, which was a first in itself.

  “You know,” he said, “I dunno your plans, but I've got an uncle who always needs help with stuff.” He told me as we stood looking at the walls. He had his hand on his chin, thoughtful-like.

  “Oh?” I couldn't believe it. He was thinking of offering me another job? Now?

  “Yeah. Far away, though,” he said.

  “How far?”

  The thought of going somewhere far appealed to me. Here, I was tied to my identity. My group: Pete, Jake and Bill. I couldn't shake the way I'd been. If I left, I could change.

  “Well, far. Like, in Wyoming.”

  “Wyoming.”

  The instant he said it, my mind filled in a poster of what I imagined Wyoming to be like. Big fields. Bigger skies. Hills.

  I loved the thought of it.

  “Sign me up,” I'd said.

  He'd whistled. “Whoa, dude. I appreciate the enthusiasm! I'll tell my uncle tomorrow. Okay?”

  But it was Alex who saved me. He took me to that place, where I'd worked my first ever real job. When I'd done my first day, we chatted some more. He'd told me well done.

  We'd become friends of a sort. I still didn't understand why, but he changed my life and I was forever grateful.

  I wasn't going to ruin that by getting bad ideas about his sister.

  “Jared!” Cody called.

  “What?” I snapped my head up as he called my name, aware, suddenly, of the fact that I'd been sitting eating lunch, completely in my own head. The others had all finished. They all looked at me.

  “You dreaming?” Jeff asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. They all laughed.

  I finished my lunch hastily and stood. We paid – each for ourselves, the way we always did, despite the threats for one person to do the lot – and left.

  I thought about that conversation, and my realization before it, all the way back to work.

  That was what I was doing. Just dreaming.

  Alex's sister was part of that crazy dream, like my dream of going to college one day, bettering myself. It was all just that: crazy, impossible dreams.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Darby

  I woke up after the reunion party feeling really mad.

  I was here in the middle of Wyoming, at my uncle's ranch. And Alex had talked me into doing the one thing I really didn't want to do: stay here for another week.

  I went into the shower, hoping that a bit of hot water and steam would cool my temper somewhat. It didn't. I came out, dried my flossy blond hair, lamenting how dry it was getting up here in the dry mountain air, and put on jeans and a nice blue shirt. At least if I was forced to stay out in the middle of nowhere I didn't have to dress like it.

  Not bad.

  The mirror showed me a woman of middling height, with a narrow waist, full bust and an hourglass figure. My hair was fine and spread out around my face in a slightly wavy cloud. I liked my hair. I was glad the dryness hadn't managed to ruin it.

  I'll be glad to be home again.

  Home was Newton, MA. I missed the charm of the place. Green River was... well... not really charming. I guess there was a charm in the rusty windmills and rural vibe, but I wasn't feeling it. All I was feeling was the frustration of being stuck out here. And my rage was fixed on Alex.

  Not to mention that guy, Jared.

  “Morning, Darby,” my aunt called out as I came down to the kitchen. My cousins – Shane and Reese – were at the table. I couldn't see my brother, which was a good thing right now.

  “Morning, auntie,” I said.

  “Eggs for breakfast?”

  “Mm. Yes, please.” I nodded. That
sounded good. I was hungry. I helped myself to coffee and sat in comfortable silence looking out over the rugged land.

  What was it about Jared that disturbed me?