Catch Twenty-Two Read online

  The rough calluses on his palm scrape against the soft, tender flesh of my own hand, and it sends my mind reeling. My throat threatens to close as my mouth instantly dries.

  “Frances Young,” I croak. “I mean Frankie. C-call me Fr-Frankie.”

  Goosebumps race from his point of contact all the way up my arm. His hazel eyes sparkle, light glinting off the amber flecks near his pupils, making the outer greenish ring even more mesmerizing.

  Dang, he’s even better looking up close.

  “Always a gentleman,” Nan says as she watches Ezekiel release my hand.

  Was the sun shining in his eyes when he looked up at the window? That would explain the change in demeanor from then to now. But the look on his face earlier was easy to read. I refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt. That will only make it easier for him to be mean to me later.

  With his penetrating gaze on mine, I rub my palm down the front of my shorts. The action doesn’t seem to bother him. If anything, his smirk deepens, drawing more attention to the two tiny dips in his cheeks.

  He’s pretending. He’s acting kind in front of Nan because she’s his boss, and he has a job to keep. That’s all.

  The back of my hand where his lips met it burns the entire time I’m setting the table. Ezekiel helps, knowing the layout of the kitchen better than I do. Every time I look at him, he’s smiling at me. Not once while we’re putting the finishing touches on supper, do I catch him with a malicious look on his handsome face.

  Then, instead of sitting on the same side as Nan, he takes the chair right beside me, after helping me scoot my chair under the table. I’ve seen it a million times in romantic movies, but we’re not in some fancy restaurant. We’re in the middle of Nan’s farmhouse, and I don’t miss the wink she tosses him as he settles into his own chair. His thigh brushes mine, and as I move a few inches away from him, I notice that his sweet smile still never falters.

  “How’s your mother, Ezekiel?” Nan asks as she passes the basket of homemade biscuits across the table to him.

  “She’s doing well.” He takes two biscuits and passes the bread to me.

  I don’t know if he touches my hand when he does it on purpose or not, but my body takes notice of the brief contact. Just like I notice the warmth of the Utah sun still clinging to his clothes, the scent of hard work fills my nose. It’s sweat and earth and something spicy and masculine, and I know it would be addictive if I allow it.

  Ezekiel doesn’t elaborate on his mother, but Nan keeps the conversation going, asking him questions I’m sure she already knows the answer to for my benefit. He never gets annoyed. He doesn’t sigh or give her clipped answers when she asks about last school year or his friends from town. He doesn’t seem to be placating her, and as the evening goes on, the memories of his sneer begin to fade.

  I find myself smiling at him, and the distance I created when we first sat down has slowly diminished. It isn’t until he places his hand on his lap and his fingers brush the bare skin of my thigh just below my cutoff shorts that I notice just how close we are.

  I nearly choke on a sip of water when his pinkie finger begins to trace small circles on my leg. His hand disappears only to show up again to thump my back as I sputter. Although it wasn’t exactly a sexual touch, it was a romantic one, and I’ve never experienced any form of romance. Guys at my school back home would rather go out of their way to avoid me rather than being caught dead sitting as close to me as Ezekiel is now. They only get close enough to insult me. It’s made me leery of all guys.

  “Thank you,” I mutter, unable to meet his eyes.

  Once I stop coughing, he doesn’t pull his hand back. His arm rests on the back of my chair, and as he carries on a conversation with my grandmother, his fingers begin to draw those same circles on my back, the heat of his hand seeping through my shirt. No matter how much water I suck down, my mouth and throat are like the desert.

  “I think that’s a great idea.” His deep voice settles in my body, but before I can mentally roll around in it, I see Nan looking at me expectantly.

  “What? I’m sorry. I missed something.”

  Zeke chuckles as if he’s well aware that his touch is distracting enough that it’s keeping me from being able to concentrate on the conversation. The husky laugh only adds to the tingles his touch is eliciting.

  “Ezekiel was just telling me that he thinks you’d have a good time at the county fair next month.”

  “County fair?” I look over at him, swallowing thickly when I realize we’re so close that I have to look up at him instead.

  “What do you say?” He smiles, showcasing his straight white teeth. “Wanna go with me?”

  “With you?” I repeat like a fool.

  “Yeah.” His pretty eyes search mine as he waits for an answer.

  “Okay.” I shrug, going for nonchalant, but the weight of his arm is still on my shoulders.

  “It’s a date then,” Nan says, and the reminder that Ezekiel and I aren’t alone in the room is the only thing I need to move a few inches away.

  “A date,” he agrees as he watches my face.

  Under normal circumstances his scrutiny would make me uncomfortable, but for some reason I don’t feel that way with him. No one has ever looked at me the way he’s looking at me now, and when his eyes focus on my lips, they tingle, forcing me to roll them between my teeth for relief. A small smile plays on his own lips, as if he can read my mind. My cheeks heat, no doubt turning red, and I force myself to look away from him.

  He rushes to stand when Nan does, but she waves him off.

  “I’m going to get the other casserole ready for you to take home. You two spend a little time getting to know each other.”

  Nan shuffles away, and the awkwardness that I expected to fill our suppertime finally arrives. I don’t know what to say to him, and as silence swarms around us, I wonder if he’s unsure of what to say as well. Nan’s house isn’t large, so even though she’s at the counter busying herself with the food, she’ll still be able to hear everything we say.

  “She’s been talking about you nonstop for the last month.” He grins, leaning in closer like we’re going to share a secret. “She didn’t do you justice.”

  “I… umm.” I push a loose strand of hair behind my ear, unsure of how to respond to that. “Thanks.”

  Crap, Frankie. How lame can you be?

  “I should get going,” Ezekiel says as he stands. I miss the warmth of his fingers on my back. He bends to kiss Nan on the cheek as she offers him the covered casserole dish. “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Nanette.”

  I lift my hand to wave at him as he passes by me, but instead of walking past, he grips my hand and tugs me along.

  “Why don’t you walk me out?”

  “That’s a great idea,” Nan says, making it clear she’s been watching us the entire time.

  On unsteady legs, I allow him to pull me out the front door. My pulse kicks up several notches as he continues to hold my hand while he places the casserole dish on the passenger seat of the truck.

  “It was lovely to me—”

  Without a word, Ezekiel presses my back to the side of his truck as he lowers his head. My heart is a drum pounding inside my chest as I look up at him with wide eyes. Is he going to kiss me? I lick my lips in anticipation. Jesus, he’s going to do it.

  But he doesn’t. Instead, he leans closer, his nose trailing up the column of my neck. The shiver that races down my spine has nothing on the goosebumps I felt earlier when he brushed his warm lips against my hand.

  His soft chuckle fills my ears, but it doesn’t have the soft ring to it that his laugh did inside while we ate supper. No, this laugh is sinister, malevolent in nature.

  “Silly little girl,” he rasps in my ear. “Did you really think I’d kiss you? I’d rather piss on an electric fence.”

  I’m frozen in place, aghast by what he just said.

  I open my eyes and pull my head back a few inches, certain I’d find his lips smiling
at the not-so-funny joke, but instead of the sweet smile that played on his lips earlier, the sneer from when I first saw him is back.

  Without another word, he backs up, moves me to the side, and climbs into the cab of the truck. He doesn’t even give me a second look as he places the pickup in reverse and drives away.

  Did that really just happen?

  I don’t know how long I stand in the middle of the yard gawking, but his taillights are long gone by the time Nan calls to me from the porch.

  Chapter 3

  Zeke

  Dad doesn’t even lift his eyes from the TV as I enter the small cottage style home. Per usual, Mom is in the kitchen working on the dishes as I walk in to put the casserole in the fridge. Mrs. Nanette always makes too much to eat, and we benefit from her overcooking. Don’t get me wrong, we’re grateful, but her little doses of charity are hard to swallow down most days.

  “Tater tot casserole,” I tell Mom as I close the refrigerator door.

  “Glad you’re home, sweetheart.” Mom presses her lips to my temple, and I stand there and take it even though I want to lash out at her.

  This isn’t home. Home was thirty miles east of here. I haven’t been home in four years, not since we lost our own ranch and were forced to work on someone else’s. Nanette Jacobson is a nice lady. She’s given Dad a job and pays him as much as she can, but her ranch is struggling, too. Droughts the last couple of years have made it hard for small-time ranchers to stay in business.

  To say I’m bitter is an understatement. I’m no stranger to hard work, and working hard has always benefited me on the football field. My physique can’t be gained from the gym.

  “How was supper? Did you finally meet Frances?” Mom asks the questions with a smile, but it’s clear she’s more interested in making small talk than actually learning something about Nanette Jacobson’s only granddaughter.

  That stupid girl has done nothing but make my blood boil hotter and hotter with each minute I had to spend with her, and I don’t mean it in a good way. I’ve suffered through countless conversations as Nanette bragged about her granddaughter.

  Frances is perfect.

  You’re going to love her.

  She’s the sweetest child.

  She’s so smart. Top of her class. Hoping to go to Harvard or Stanford.

  I hated the girl long before I met her. She really never stood a chance. But it wasn’t until Dad slipped up and mentioned how a relationship with the Jacobson heir would be beneficial to our own family that I got a bad taste in my mouth for her. He didn’t mean it in a manipulative or deceptive way, but just the suggestion of who I should date or be friendly with annoys me.

  “Zeke?” I turn my head to find Mom frowning at me. “Did you meet her?”

  I nod. “She’s lovely. Even prettier than Mrs. Nanette described.”

  That’s not a lie either. The girl is positively gorgeous, but despite her mysterious gray eyes and shiny dark hair, despite her tiny frame and the hundreds of things I can imagine doing to her, I still hate her.

  Frances Young is everything I’m trying to avoid, namely being locked down to Utah when all I want to do is get out of this flat, fly-over state. I don’t want to work on a ranch. I don’t want to spend countless hours in the sun, and I don’t want to be the focus of two families that are trying to shove me into the arms of someone they handpicked for me, especially some city girl who has probably never met a hard day’s work.

  I hate them all for trying to control another aspect of my destiny. My life is my own, and it’s about damn time everyone realizes it. Too many things have been taken from me recently, and it’s left me bitter and filled with anger. Until Frances Young arrived, I had no outlet for my building aggression.

  Football is no longer an option this year because Dad needs help on the Jacobson Ranch. Even the handful of hours required for practice and games each week is too much to take away from the hours I could be working. No football means no real chance at a scholarship, and no scholarship means no college. Working a ranch is all I’ll ever know and swallowing that reality is one jagged little pill.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if they tell me I need to drop out to work full time. Many of my friends have been forced to do just that. We all help our families, and we do so without complaint, but that doesn’t keep the bitterness from seeping into my skin late at night when I try to wrap my head around the fact that what I’m doing now will be exactly what I’ll be doing in twenty years, only I’ll have a bad back and leather-rough skin.

  “Tell me about her,” Mom urges.

  My mother is the last person that should be pushing me toward a girl I don’t know. Her parents tried to do the same thing to her, and when she fell in love with my dad rather than agreeing to marry the man her father thought she should, she was shunned, cast out and treated as if she no longer existed. She didn’t marry a man of the church, which led to her being exiled and disowned by her family. I haven’t met a single person from my mother’s side of the family, and I don’t imagine I ever will.

  Hope flickers in Mom’s eyes as she takes a seat at the tiny kitchen table. She wants me to like Frances Young because I want to like her, not because Dad needs me to. I love her even more for that.

  “Let me get to know her first, Mom.” I kiss her temple and she pats my hand. “I’ll be able to answer those questions better when I do.”

  Dad grunts when I tell him goodnight as I walk through the living room to go to my bedroom, but he doesn’t pull his eyes from the TV. He’s a man of few words. He always has been, but the weight of the last couple of years is weighing him down. He’s thinner, his gaunt cheeks sinking further in as time passes. He’s not as fast or able to lift as much as he used to. Ranching takes a toll on the body, and Dad has been working all his life. He dropped out when he was in middle school to help his own father, and he’s always told me to dream bigger, to reach for the stars, but then the bank foreclosed on our land and sold our cattle to the highest bidder at the county auction.

  He hasn’t mentioned my dreams since the day his were taken away.

  He was my hero growing up, the man I looked to when I didn’t know how to do something. He was the man I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to emulate the relationship he had with my mother, always doting on her no matter how long his day was or how tired his eyes were when he finally made it home. He worshipped the ground she walked on. Every day he was able to wake up beside her was a blessing. That’s what he used to tell me as a child. Now he can’t hardly look at her, and I know that has more to do with his own sense of failure than anything, but I also see the way she reaches for him when he isn’t looking. She misses him even though they’re in the same room together.

  Although my room is more like a closet, I’m not bothered by the lack of space. Even a huge room would close in on me and stomp out my hopes and dreams. Frances Young is just another way to keep me here in Utah, as if my obligations to my family aren’t enough.

  My shower is quick and economical. I don’t waste water even though the heat of a long shower would work wonders on my sore muscles. I have to get up tomorrow and do it all over again. Just the prospect of seeing her again makes me punch my pillow when I finally lie down.

  Being mean to her makes me feel like a complete ass. I’ve never treated a girl the way I treated her tonight. My mother would slap my face if she saw how I acted earlier in Mrs. Jacobson’s driveway. My dad would tan my hide with a thick switch if he caught wind of what I said to her.

  What they don’t understand is that Frances Young is the epitome of everything I hate in life. Sweet, innocent, and full of hopes and dreams. I can’t even succeed at my own life. How can I even begin to be responsible for someone else’s?

  Love and relationships don’t do anything but weigh you down. Having someone watch me while I fail doesn’t seem like a good time to me, and if I look at my own parents, it’s just another reason it’s better to be alone forever. No matter how many years of love and d
edication you put in, everyone ends up disappointed in the end. I don’t need another judgmental witness to my failures.

  Staying away from her won’t be hard for me, but I also know everyone, Mrs. Jacobson and my dad mostly, will be thrusting us at each other relentlessly all summer long. I’d like nothing more than for the girl to go home and just leave me to suffer my meager destiny alone.

  As the house grows quiet, the TV turned off and my parents going to sleep as strangers in the same bed, I stare at the ceiling. I normally don’t waste my time worried about my station in life. It is what it is, and there isn’t much I can do about it. I don’t know what it is about that stupid girl that makes me hate the things I can’t control even more.

  This summer may just end up being the longest three months of my entire life.

  Chapter 4

  Frankie

  “I don’t know.”

  I stare at the wall, waiting for Piper to continue. She hasn’t been exactly forthcoming about what happened the night of the accident.

  “So you’re home, and he’s still in the hospital?” I ask when it’s clear she isn’t going to give me any more information than what I’m able to pull from her by force.

  “Yes. My arm is in a soft cast, and I have a mild concussion, but he’s suffered a traumatic brain injury. I don’t know anything else.”

  “Why did you even get in the car with him? He could’ve killed you both.”

  “I have to go, Frankie. Being on the phone makes my head hurt. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  The line goes dead, and I’m seething once again. Am I not worth at least a goodbye? I can admit that just hanging up is much better than the goodbye I got from that jerk Ezekiel. It’s been four long days since he left me standing with my jaw hanging open in the driveway.