Slow Burn. Heather Pozzessere Graham
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Sly was great about that. He never needed accolades for doing what he thought was right.
And Reva was sweet, so everyone enjoyed having her around. She had a disposition like gold; she laughed at everyone’s jokes. She was also an incredibly pretty girl, and the guys certainly appreciated that—not that any of them would consider touching her, or even cracking any of their adolescent jokes about her. Maybe David was being raised by a strange old Scottish grandfather, but he showed no lack of Cuban machismo where his sister was concerned. He watched over her like a hawk. But there was really no need, anyway. They were all friends. Just friends. Nobody was actually with anybody else.
Except for Terry-Sue, who was still climbing all over David once the cars were parked, the blankets laid out and the food baskets set up.
In her crimson bikini, lathered in suntan oil, Spencer was stretched out on one of the blankets, half in the sun, half out of it. She could feel her flesh turning hot, sticky. She could feel the heat beating down on her, then the coolness of the breeze whenever a stray cloud wandered over the sun and the pines that ringed the rock pit began to bow and sway. She pretended to be oblivious to anything but her lazy sunning. Her head was down, her back exposed, and she had an arm stretched carelessly over her eyes.
Not really.
She was watching.
Watching—and seething.
Terry-Sue was having the time of her life.
She was a cute girl with a cap of rich dark auburn hair. She was short, petite—with a chest that didn’t quit. In fact, Spencer thought, just a little bit maliciously, that Terry-Sue was just one gigantic set of boobs. It wasn’t that her bikini was any more daring than anyone else’s, but…
It was just that she spilled out of the damned thing. All over. And she had her chest just about shoved beneath David’s nose every other second.
A giggle, shrill, very feminine, crossed the air and seemed to rip right along Spencer’s spine. “David!” Terry-Sue called out in laughing protest. He’d lifted her up, her hands on his shoulders, and he was about to dunk her again. He was laughing good-humoredly. None of the guys looked as good as David. One day they might. One day. But David had matured first. His shoulders were broad, he was deeply tanned—he even had hair on his chest. His stomach was rippled, hard and flat. They were all very nearly adults, but physically, David Delgado was there, and his appeal was both sensual and sexual. Spencer had always liked him; she’d thought he’d always liked her. She’d even helped him a few times with English grammar, a subject that came to her naturally.
And since they all had to take Spanish in school, she’d sweetly asked for help back. And gotten it. If anyone was going to get any closer to David, it should be her. He didn’t spend all his time with their group; he had dated other girls, she knew. She had even spent a few nights staring at the ceiling, wondering what he did with other girls—no, women. David would go after women. He was almost two years older than she was, but girls matured faster, or so she had always been told.
Like Terry-Sue. She was definitely mature. She was so damned mature it looked like she might just topple forward with maturity at any second.
“They’re just fooling around, you know,” Spencer heard someone say. She moved her arm, startled. No one should have been able to realize that she’d been watching the horseplay in the water, but someone had. Reva. Still a little shy around them, and just a shade too darn intuitive.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spencer said flatly. She stretched and sat up, yawning. She wasn’t about to admit to Reva that she had been watching her brother. “Hand me a Coke, will you, please, Reva?” she asked, determinded to coolly dismiss the subject.
Reva, on her knees on the blanket, reached into the cooler for a Coke. She might be shy, but she wasn’t about to be so easily dismissed. “He really likes you, Spencer. He always has.”
“Sure, we’re friends. We like each other,” Spencer said. She stood up restlessly. “Never mind the Coke. I’ll just cool off in the water.”
She could swim well, and she knew it. She could dive like an expert, as well—she should be able to, her mother had insisted on enough lessons. Now she was determined to use a little of what she knew how to do. Through training—and instinct. There was a small overhang that jutted out high over the water. A dive from there was dangerous, because there were jagged outcrops of rock surrounding very deep water. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea, since there were so many wrecks in the water.
But it was the only place where she could get any height. She strode up to the overhang with a lazy, long-legged stride. She wasn’t stupid, and not only did she not want to die, she didn’t want to wind up maimed or in pain, either, so she took a very careful look at the water as she got her bearings.
“Spencer Montgomery, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” came a shout.
She was so startled that she almost took a misstep. It was David. He was still in the water.
And Terry-Sue still had her arms around him, her “assets” crushed to his chest.
“Diving!” she called irritably.
And before he could stop her, she took the plunge.
The water, cool and fresh, enveloped her, and she knifed downward at a fantastic speed. She just missed the edge of a crashed Valiant, then managed to reverse her direction and move toward the surface. She was almost there when she felt hands on her shoulders, wrenching her up.
David.
Well, that had been the idea, hadn’t it? To attract his attention? She had it now.
Except that she didn’t want it this way.
He was glaring at her, hair wet and slicked back, features harsh. “What the hell did you think you were doing, you little fool?”
“I knew what I was doing. I can swim, I can dive!”
“And you were being a snot-nosed little show-off!” he assured her. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”
“And if I had,” she returned, humiliated, infuriated, “it would have been none of your goddamned business.” For a moment she thought incredulously that he was about to slap her across the cheek right then and there, while they were treading water.
“You’re right, Miss Montgomery. It’s none of my damned business. But Sly would have been upset if something had happened to you, and I happen to care a whole lot about Sly. So if you have to show off, try not to do it in front of me. We all know you’re just about perfect, Spencer. You don’t have to prove it to anyone.”
He let go of her, leaving her shaking. At least, with the water to hide her, no one could tell. Everyone was watching them from the banks of the pit, but, she thought gratefully, David hadn’t shouted. His words hadn’t been heard.
He was getting out of the water, all six feet plus of him, asking someone to toss him a towel. Spencer got out, too, chin high, determined to keep her dignity intact.
Danny came toward her, offering her a towel, a grin and a thumbs-up sign. “I wasn’t worried,” he teased softly. Like Reva, he had a disposition like gold and an encouraging grin for everyone. He could be very serious, though. Danny wanted to change the world. He had always been the idealist in their crowd. “I guess I know you too well.”
He made her smile as she accepted the towel. “I’m not feeling much like a picnic anymore. I’m going to sneak away,” she told him.
“I’d sneak away, too, except I don’t want to go home,” he admitted. He wrinkled his nose. “Mom’s there with her bridge club discussing the charity auction.”
She grinned. “I’m not going home. I’m going to Sly’s. He’s down in Key West, looking at an old place some eccentric intends to save. I’ll have the house all to myself.”
She wanted to be alone. To lick a few wounds. Danny