This Heart of Mine. Brenda Novak

mutual discovery and young love. She didn’t realize it, but their breakup had been almost as hard on him. He’d trusted his parents to know what was best for him, and yet he’d never felt sure they were right. “No one had better find out about this.”

      Kyle slapped him on the back. “They won’t.”

      “Including her.”

      “It’s a doorbell ditch. She’ll never catch us.”

      “We’re not ringing the damn bell. She can find whatever we leave in the morning. It’s not like it’s going to rain.”

      The saleswoman was on her way back, arms full. “Do you like any of these?”

      Kyle sifted through the various styles of shorts and shirts she’d collected. “I bet the cutoffs would look nice.”

      The saleswoman seemed pleased with his choice. “Would you like to purchase them, too? Maybe with this purple shirt?”

      He scratched his head. “I’m not sure about the shirt. I’m not big on purple.”

      As they walked over to see about getting the shirt in a different color, Riley wandered through the rest of the store. They’d already bought Phoenix an expensive pair of running shoes, some flip-flops, a pair of “skinny” jeans and a white, lacy tank top. As far as he was concerned, except for underwear, they were finished. But when he turned around to go over to the register, he caught sight of an aquamarine top that looked as if it would match those stormy eyes of hers.

      “You coming?” Kyle called.

      Riley almost walked off without it. They had enough. But at the last second, he changed his mind and went back.

      “Do you want that instead of the pink one we just got?” Kyle asked when he saw what Riley was carrying.

      “No, we’ll get this one, too,” he replied. “I’m sure she could use an extra top.”

      “You’re spending a lot of money,” his friend complained.

      “What are you talking about?” He took out his wallet. “I’m paying half, so you’re still in it for less than you planned.”

      “That’s all well and good. But I don’t want you to blame me later for what this cost you, just because it was my idea. You’re the one who’s running up the bill. You insisted on getting the more expensive tennis shoes.” He checked the tag on the shirt. “And this is sixty dollars!”

      They could swing sixty bucks for someone who’d never had much of anything. He’d used the same rationale when considering the running shoes. Although he was probably a fool for getting involved in this—it made Phoenix sympathetic to him when he was hoping to keep her at a distance—he was starting to get excited now that they were finished with all the style and size choices. He kept imagining the relief these things would bring her, and that made him feel good despite the ambiguity of the past—or perhaps because of it. “It’ll only be thirty dollars since we’re splitting it,” he said, and watched the salesgirl ring it up.

4

      A noise startled Phoenix. Earlier she’d awakened with a crick in her neck after nodding off at her desk and had stumbled to her bed, where she’d been sleeping ever since. She’d gotten very little rest the past few days; she’d been too busy, too anxious, too worried. Apparently, her exhaustion had overcome all of that. But she was still uneasy enough not to allow herself to sink too deeply into unconsciousness. At the back of her mind were those letters from Lori Mansfield’s family and the threats they contained. This was their town, they’d said. Lori’s town. Phoenix had no idea if Buddy, the brother who’d sent the worst of the letters, would actually “make her sorry,” as he claimed. But this sound...it wasn’t just the dogs, although she could hear them barking from her mother’s trailer.

      She blinked into the darkness as the wooden steps leading to her door creaked again. Was someone looking for a way in? The fact that finding one wouldn’t be hard made her supremely aware of her own vulnerability. She’d opened her windows because it had been so warm in the afternoon and she didn’t have a working air conditioner. Then she’d been too out of it to remember to close them when she went to bed. Buddy could easily cut the screen on the large living room window beside the steps and hoist himself through...

      Her heart in her throat, Phoenix scrambled out of bed and rummaged around until she found the bat she’d brought in from the yard her first night back. It was all she had to defend herself with, but she was determined that she would not let Buddy stop her from being part of Jacob’s life. She’d suffered enough for what had happened to Lori Mansfield. Since she hadn’t done anything wrong, besides make a couple of stupid crank calls to Lori before the accident, she’d basically been punished for falling in love with Riley Stinson. Her crush on him was what had given her the supposed “motive.”

      “Who is it?” She hated the tremor in her voice. She needed to sound strong in order to convince Buddy—it had to be him—not to try anything. But he didn’t seem to be breaking in. She heard a thud, as though he’d dropped something on her porch. Then there was another thud and the tap, tap, tap of receding footsteps.

      Holy shit! It sounded as if there were two people on her porch! What had they left behind? And what would it do to her?

      Wielding the bat with single-minded purpose, she charged down the hall and through the front door, screaming like a banshee. “I’m not going anywhere, you sons of bitches!” she yelled.

      Her mother had had a floodlight installed to discourage teenagers from coming out and throwing beer bottles at her trailer, so Phoenix could see the back of a tall figure dressed in black and wearing a hoodie. She thought he called out, “Shit! Let’s go!” But she couldn’t see anyone with him, and there was no way she could catch him. He ran off the property and sprinted down the road, too far ahead for her to even give chase.

      “Phoenix?”

      The dogs—and possibly her shouting—had awakened her mother.

      “It’s nothing,” she told Lizzie, and squinted into the darkness, trying to make sure that was true. There wasn’t anyone else on the property, was there?

      No one she could see. If there’d been two people, they’d both run off—but they’d left two medium-size boxes outside her door.

      She wondered what mean thing her fellow Whiskey Creek residents had gotten up to as her mother reprimanded the dogs. “Settle down!”

      Using her bat to poke the boxes so she wouldn’t have to get too close, Phoenix pushed them onto the ground. She was convinced they contained a bomb or a snake or something that was just unpleasant, like dog crap—so convinced she almost didn’t want to open them. She knew she wasn’t welcome here, didn’t need any more warnings. But one of the boxes broke apart when it struck the ground and what spilled out didn’t look dangerous or unpleasant.

      From what she could tell, it was...clothes. And canned goods, which was why they’d hit the ground with such force.

      She peered at the man—or men—who’d run off. Why would Buddy, or anyone else, bring her clothes and food?

      Was there something wrong with it? It would be far crueler to make her believe this was a nice gesture, only to let her discover later that there were words written on the various articles, like Murderer, that he’d urinated on everything or that the canned goods were rotten or poisoned.

      And what was in the other box? The one that hadn’t broken open?

      Slowly descending the steps, she made her way around to find out, but she kept looking over her shoulder, checking to see whether whoever it was would come back. If Buddy had dropped off something intended to be hurtful, he’d want to stick around to make sure it had the proper impact.

      There was also the possibility that