“I don’t think so. I’m not too keen on singing in front of crowds.”

“Too bad. Sometimes the pot is as big as five hundred buckaroos.”

“Wow. Nice.”

Everly’s old car couldn’t keep pace with the other vehicles on the road. After being tailed for a mile by an obnoxious car with extra bright headlights, she pulled off onto a clearing. We waited for several cars to pass. As their headlights lit up the side of the road, I noticed a trailhead that had a locked gate across it.

“And now you see why I hardly ever drive. This car is just one step from the scrap metal graveyard.”

“It does seem to be taking its last breath.” I pointed ahead. “What’s the gate for?”

Everly leaned down and squinted through the windshield. “Shit, I didn’t notice where I’d pulled off.” She glanced back at the road and rolled back onto the highway. “That was Handel’s Trail. It goes along the west ridge of the mountain and circles down to the river. If you travel south, you eventually end up at a place that is supposedly a historical landmark, but it’s really just an old shed built into the base of the mountain.”

“I saw the marker for it when I stopped at Phantom Curve. It’s an old fur trappers’ shelter.”

“Yep. That’s it.”

“I did think it was a little ironic that the landmark was right next to such a dangerous section of highway.”

A dark sounding laugh shot from her lips. “That’s only half of the irony. The trailhead we just pulled away from, the one that now sits behind the locked gate, has an even more macabre history than Phantom Curve. There used to be a bus stop sitting right where I pulled my car off. It was the last place that four girls were seen before they vanished for good.”

“What? No. What is that like some town myth or ghost story to freak out newcomers?”

“Wish it was just a myth.”

I looked at her. The bell sleeve of the shirt I’d lent her had slipped back, exposing her scars. They looked waxy in the dark car. There were times when I’d completely forget she had them, and other times, when my gut crunched in pain for her, thinking about all that she’d endured. But it wasn’t the scars she was thinking about now.

“Jeez, did you know any of them?”

“Just one. We were in the same third grade class when she disappeared. Nadine Carbuncle. Everyone used to snicker when the teacher called her by her funny last name but she didn’t seem to mind. She was one of those kids who blended into the rest of the world, with the exception of her last name. I just remember her Care Bears lunchbox and she always colored between the lines and she was the first to learn her sevens times tables. God those sevens were a bitch, weren’t they? Still don’t know all of them. Nadine used to walk to the bus stop and then her mom would pick her up because she just happened to be the bus driver on that route. I always thought it was cool that her mom drove a bus. But one day, her mom arrived and Nadine was gone. It was just before spring break. No trace of her left behind. Not even the lunchbox. She was number four. The first three happened before I was born. My mom had gone to school with the first girl. She was twelve when she vanished. Only one was a girl who’d been passing through town to see her grandmother a few hundred miles away. I think she was fourteen. Police never found anything. They even sent in special detectives. Still do occasionally, when a family member steps in to revive the case. One of the detectives came through town just last month asking locals questions again. The townsfolk have an alternative theory that a vicious grizzly lives in that part of the woods. And, of course, there are all the wacky alien and witch theories. But it is strange how they all disappeared without a trace.”

“Wow, this town has seen its share of tragedy.” With the strange coincidental deaths at Phantom Curve and the missing girls, Blackthorn Ridge was certainly not your average remote mountain town.

“For awhile there were rumors that—” She stopped and seemed to reconsider what she was about to say.

I looked at her expectantly waiting for her to finish.

But she shook her head. “Jeez, let’s get off this topic. It’s given me the creeps, and we’re supposed to be out having fun.”

I sat back, slightly disappointed, but she was right. It was putting a wet, cold blanket on our mood.

I’d been imagining what a small town bar named Rotten Apples might look like, and the real thing did not disappoint. The only thing I hadn’t envisioned was the bright green neon martini on the corner of the sign. Otherwise, the slightly dilapidated building sat in the center of a parking lot, a lot that was filled with cars, trucks and motorcycles. “I guess this is the place to be on Friday night.”

“It’s either here or bingo at the church, dull political debating at the coffee house or the laundry mat.” Everly glanced over at me. “For the record, I’d choose laundry over the other two. My uncle was going to play some bingo tonight. Or, at least that’s what he said. He knows that I worry about him sitting all alone in his little house bingeing on Netflix shows. He might just have made the bingo plans up. His shaking problem has really slowed him down.”

“It’s terrible that the doctors can’t figure it out.”

The parking lot was nearly full. Everly drove down the last aisle and parked next to a pick-up truck. I opened the door and stepped out. Two people came around the back of the truck. I stopped short of running into the guy. He looked surprised to see me, which made sense. The girl at his side clung to him as if someone might snatch him away.

“Woodstock, what the hell are you doin’ here?”

“Same thing as you—” I paused and glanced briefly at the girl. She was pretty with a lot of lipstick and a blouse that was more unbuttoned than buttoned. “Well, maybe not the same thing.”

He looked down at my dress and boots. “You look like you’re going in to do a country line dance. You here for the singing contest?” He seemed amused at the idea. Everly and the girl were standing in the little circle we’d made next to the truck, but he ignored them as if we were standing there alone.

“Maybe I am.” The usual tension tightened the air between us. He could rile me in an instant, and yet I had no urge to stomp away from him.

The girl gave him a tug. “Let’s go, Jemmy. I’m bored standing here.”

“Yeah, Jemmy, why don’t you and Katy run along and do whatever the hell you were planning,” Everly said with a roll of her eyes, “and we’ll head inside.” Everly took hold of my hand and pulled me along toward the bar.

I looked back over my shoulder. Jem had done the same. It was only a brief glance, but I could feel the heat of his gaze long after I’d turned back around.

Chapter 10

Jem

Katy unbuttoned the front of my jeans, but my gaze was still riveted to the girl walking into Rotten Apples. She disappeared inside, but I stared at the door waiting for the image of her to vanish completely. It never did. I was spending a lot of fucking time thinking about her, the way she looked, the way she moved, the way she talked, even the way her bottom lip twisted when something I said made her angry. Might have been why I kept teasing her, just so I could see that plump bottom lip curl. I’d never been so damn distracted by any girl in my life.

Katy’s hand slid down my pants, jarring me from my thoughts. “Shit, Jem, you’re not thinking about that girl in the shabby dress”—she curled her fingers around my cock as she spoke—“when you’re supposed to be thinking about me.”

Her words were like a cold slap because it was true. I was sitting in the backseat of the truck with Katy’s hand wrapped around my cock, and I was thinking about Tashlyn. This was fucking new, and I wasn’t liking it. I looked at Katy. “Not going to lie, I was thinking about her.” It was probably a stupid thing to admit with her fingers wrapped so tightly around me and so dangerously close to my nuts, but seeing Tashlyn had shocked me out of my backseat mood.