I Think I Love You

  I Think I Love You

  by

  Stephanie Bond

  Without limiting the rights under copyright(s) reserved above and below, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  Please Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distributing of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Copyright 2002, 2011 by Stephanie Bond, Inc.

  Originally published 2002 in the U.S. by St. Martin’s Press

  Cover by Andy Brown at clicktwicedesign.com

  ebook design by eBook Prep www.ebookprep.com

  Thank You.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the people in my circle of friends who provide plausible answers to my questions, no matter how outlandish or obscure. For this book, that group consists of my editor, Jennifer Enderlin; my father, Willis Bond; plus friends Bill Parker and Tim Logsdon. Also, thanks to friends whose support seems to multiply exponentially as deadlines approach: my agent, Kimberly Whalen; writing critique partners, Rita Herron and Carmen Green; and meals-on-wheels gal pal, Jacki Jaynes.

  Prologue

  Regina Metcalf’s older sister wagged her finger so close to Regina’s nose, she thought she might go crosseyed—not a good look for someone who already had to contend with the nickname Four Eyes.

  “If either of you two brats tell Mom and Dad what I’m about to show you, I’ll put bats in your beds, got that?”

  Fourteen-year-old Regina nodded, because Justine had a mean redhead streak that she didn’t mind unleashing on her younger sisters at her discretion. Next to Regina, twelve-year-old Mica nodded mutely, then waited until Justine turned away before giving her the bird.

  Regina slapped at Mica’s hand, although she doubted if her sister knew what the gesture meant. Mica made a face, then followed Justine toward a thicket, twisting her bikini-clad hips in a preteen priss that made Regina roll her eyes. Her dark-haired baby sister was already a head taller, with a lithe figure and knockout looks. Regina pushed her own wet blond bangs out of her eyes, used her finger to wipe the lenses of her wire-rimmed glasses, then squinted to get her bearings.

  As near as she could tell, the hill they’d climbed rose above Armadillo Creek where they’d just taken an afternoon dip in the Dilly swimming hole to escape the sauna that was Monroeville, North Carolina, in mid-July. They’d been walking home, swatting at sweat bees and maneuvering gravel roads on bare feet, when Justine had announced in that haughty seventeen-year-old tone she’d mastered that she had a seeeee-cret, although she wasn’t about to tell them. Predictably, Mica had launched into a whine session that escalated into a full tantrum until Justine had magnanimously agreed to show them—peasants—the secret place she’d stumbled onto.

  Regina sighed and watched her sisters disappear into the bushes where they’d tossed their dry clothes on the ground. They wore her out with their constant bickering. Now she wasn’t in the mood to do anything except get home to see if Mr. Calvin had delivered his weekly box of books scavenged from flea markets and garage sales. She still needed numbers ten, twenty-one, and forty-four of the Nancy Drew mystery series to complete her set, and sometimes Mr. Calvin’s box held treasures. She simply had to sort through the box before her parents unwittingly shelved something important in the recesses of their antiques store and the volume was lost forever or—heaven forbid—sold.

  Justine’s head appeared through the brambles, and she beckoned, her face screwed up in annoyance. Regina stifled a groan. Knowing Justine, her “secret” was probably a rock covered with dirty-word graffiti or something equally dull. But ever the pleaser, Regina jogged to the opening in the bushes, dropped her dry clothes in the hot grass, and joined her sisters in the underbrush where they lay on their stomachs in what looked like snake paradise. She crawled forward on her elbows, staving off the heebie-jeebies by telling herself that Nancy Drew wouldn’t let a little snakebite stand in the way of a mysterious mission. Their intrusion into the knee-high weeds stirred up a swarm of gnats and loosened the scent of moist dirt. She knuckled her nose to ward off a sneeze. “So what’s the big secret?”

  “Shhh!” Justine elbowed her so hard, her glasses were thrown askew. “Look, you dolt.”

  Regina righted her glasses, then stared down. Immediately her stomach vaulted—next to snakes, heights were a runner-up phobia not shared by her sisters, who seemed undaunted by the fact that they were lying on a rocky outcropping about thirty feet off the ground. Below them in a sparsely wooded area carpeted with flattened grass sat a yellow Volkswagen Rabbit with the windows rolled down.

  “It’s Pete Shadowen’s car,” Justine whispered. “And I’ll bet that’s Tobi Evans in there with him, the tramp.”

  Pete Shadowen was a baseball star at their high school—Regina calculated that he would be a junior this fall, one year behind Justine. Tobi Evans, with that name, had no choice but to be a cheerleader. Tobi would be a junior, too, and Justine hated her for no good reason.

  “What are they doing way out here?” Regina whispered.

  Justine looked at her as if she were a tree. “What do you think they’re doing way out here?”

  “Hunting?” Mica guessed.

  Justine scoffed. “Don’t you two know anything? That’s Lovers’ Lane down there. They’re making out, you idgets.”

  Mica’s eyes bugged, and Regina suspected that her own face looked the same. She’d heard whispers and giggles of the place, but she hadn’t known it actually existed. The implication hit her full force, and she swallowed. “You mean they’re having sex?”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  The trio fell silent, straining for glimpses and sounds that Regina didn’t know if she’d even recognize. But she did know one thing—if their parents found out they were spying at Lovers’ Lane, they’d be grounded for the rest of their sorry lives and into the hereafter. Still… lately she’d developed a burning curiosity about this sex thing that superseded even the desire to become a teenage sleuth.

  Through the trees, she made out two figures in the car who appeared to be grappling for leverage in the backseat, but she couldn’t tell who was on top or which body parts were in use. Male grunts and moans floated up to them, so Pete was obviously getting the better end of the deal. Suddenly the driver’s seat shot forward and the horn blasted. Regina jerked and Mica screamed, which sent them all scurrying back from the edge. Justine flogged Mica, hissing at her to be quiet. All grunts and moans subsided, and the next noise was the sound of the car engine starting. It took Pete a few seconds to find a gear, then he peeled out of there as fast as his little car would take him. The girls crept back to the edge in time to see his “Monroeville Mudcats” bumper sticker disappear.

  Justine rolled onto her back and laughed. She had big boobs. Regina used fruit to monitor her sisters’ Cross Your Heart bras that went through the laundry. Justine was now up to a large navel orange, and Mica, a lemon. She herself was looking at a lifetime of bing cherries.

  “I would’ve liked to see the look on Tobi’s face,” Justine said. “I’ll bet she
was going down on him.”

  Regina laughed, too. “What do you mean?”

  Justine sighed. “You should read something besides those silly little-girl books.”

  Regina bit into her lip—it was true that the age difference between her and Justine seemed vaster than three years. Justine was a fully developed woman, who wore high-heeled sandals and required her own bathroom for grooming, while Regina favored Converse sneakers and had not yet broken the seal on the box of Tampax her mother had given her two years ago. Justine was a whiz with makeup and had a suitcase full of mysterious pots and tools. Once she’d talked Regina into wearing mascara, but when Regina’s eyes had swollen shut from an allergic reaction, Justine had declared her to be a hopeless “before” and turned her attention to Mica.

  “I do read… other things,” Regina mumbled. Although those svelte creatures in ‘Teen magazine might as well be on another planet. Still, she devoured the how-to articles, hoping to mine one nugget of life-altering truth from the profusion of perplexing DOs and DON’Ts lists: DO consider a permanent wave if your hair is thin. (Hers was.) DON’T wear the same pair of shoes every day. (She did.) DO learn to flirt with your eyes. (Huh?) To date, she hadn’t uncovered the key to an expedient and successful transition into womanhood, but there was always next month, and more DOs and DON’Ts.

  Justine picked a wide blade of grass. “Take a look under Cissy and John’s mattress if you want a real education.”

  “You’re not supposed to call them by their first names.”

  “Oh, yeah, they can shack up for twenty years, but we’re supposed to follow the rules.” Justine held the blade between her thumbs and blew hard through the minuscule opening yet was unable to produce a whistle.

  “Don’t talk like that,” Regina said. She’d heard enough snide comments about their parents from other people, from other kids. Immoral. Indecent. Illegitimate. “They’re married under common law.”

  “Common-law marriages aren’t recognized in North Carolina,” Justine said, blowing again, to no avail.

  “They’re bohemian,” Regina retorted. She’d been so happy to find a word to describe her hippie parents that didn’t sound kooky.

  Her sisters weren’t listening.

  “What’s under their mattress?” Mica asked, giving Justine’s shoulder enough of a shove to dislodge the blade of grass.

  “Hey!”

  “Tell us, Miss Know-It-All.” Mica picked her own blade of grass, mimicked the gesture, and produced not just a whistle but a tune.

  Regina shook her head—her two sisters lived to outdo each other.

  “You’re too young to know,” Justine purred.

  And Regina didn’t want to know what her parents kept under their mattress, so she cast about for a diversion. “How did you find this place?”

  Justine took the bait. “By accident. I was walking home one day and heard a woman wailing like a banshee. I thought someone was being murdered or something.” She laughed. “That lady was yelling for God, all right, but believe me, she was not in trouble.”

  “Who was she?” Mica asked, wide-eyed.

  Justine grinned. “Mrs. Woods, the fat checker at the Grab ‘N Go.”

  “Ewww!” Regina and Mica chorused.

  “They were in a beat-up Oldsmobile, and was that rattletrap ever rockin’.” Then she sat up, her eyes alight. “And get this—I couldn’t see who they were, but there were two men with her.”

  Regina squinted. “Huh? Why?” No matter how she sorted the images in her head, the tabs didn’t fit into the slots.

  “One man was probably driving,” Mica offered.

  “Yeah, right,” Justine said with a dry laugh.

  Regina frowned. “We’d better get home—Mother is expecting us to watch the store this afternoon.”

  Justine dismissed her with a wave. “It’s Monday—no one ever comes by on Monday except that smelly old Mr. Calvin with his smelly old books.”

  Regina stood and jammed her hands on what she hoped would someday become hips. “If you don’t come right now, I’ll tell Mom and Dad that you left the jewelry case open and all those things were stolen.” Her current case-in-progress—the Mystery of the Missing Stuff.

  Her older sister scoffed. “A few pieces of junk, so what?”

  “That gold watch wasn’t junk, and neither was that letter opener. Mom and Dad are going to be plenty steamed when they find out you were too busy watching Dean Haviland wash his car to keep an eye on the customers.” Their parents’ new dark-eyed deliveryman was nothing but trouble, Regina just knew it. (In the amateur-sleuth world, this feeling was known as a “hunch.”) Flirtatious Dean Haviland was Suspect Number One in her investigation.

  Justine bristled. “I was just making sure Dean didn’t use too much water from the spigot. Besides, you were supposed to be helping me watch the store instead of holing up with one of your stupid books.”

  Regina pushed up her glasses. Did no one in her family understand the burning need to read the last few pages of a great mystery? “Mica was supposed to be helping, too.”

  Mica stuck out her tongue. “Justine, you probably took those things. You steal things when you think no one is watching.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “No, it’s not!”

  “You’re a liar!”

  “You’re a thief!”

  Predictably, a shoving match ensued, and soon they were rolling around on the ground. Regina hadn’t seen Justine take items from the store, but considering her older sister’s contempt for the family business, she could believe it—Suspect Number Two.

  “Stop it.” She stepped between them and got yanked down with them for her trouble. Her glasses went flying. “Stop it!”

  “Shhh!” Justine said, freezing. “I hear a car.”

  They shushed and disentangled. After Regina reclaimed her glasses, she joined her sisters on the ledge, where they’d parted the grass with their hands. A classic black Cadillac with a white ragtop lurched over the uneven ground; then the engine quieted. At the sight of the familiar car, Regina’s mouth went dry. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Well, what do you know,” Justine murmured. “Good old Aunt Lyla—and company. This is great.”

  Justine hated Aunt Lyla, too. Granted, Justine hated a lot of people these days, but their mother’s sister-in-law ranked high on the loathing list. Their beloved uncle was the mayor of Monroeville, but his wife, Lyla, was the evil queen. Even their mother, who released caught flies outside the kitchen screen door, developed a pucker when Her Highness put in an appearance at the shop to broker antiques she had acquired during her “travels” to Raleigh and Atlanta.

  “Whoop-de-do,” Regina’s mom would mutter while opening the cash register drawer. Even though Lyla had a knack for stumbling onto good deals, Regina suspected that Cissy only tolerated the woman because she’d married Cissy’s only brother, Lawrence Gilbert.

  “Why would Aunt Lyla and Uncle Lawrence come out here to have sex?” Mica asked.

  Justine sighed. “She’s probably not with Uncle Lawrence, you imbecile.”

  A combination of the altitude and the suggestion that their aunt would keep naked company with another man tied Regina’s intestines into a double-naught knot. Still, she couldn’t drag her gaze away from the car.

  The Caddy’s white ragtop opened up like the mouth of a giant beast, then receded and dropped into folds along the backseat. Through the trees, only glimpses of the occupants were visible, but it was Lyla in the driver’s seat all right—the plunging neckline of her yellow dress and acres of white cleavage were a dead giveaway. Their mother told them not to stare there when their aunt dropped by the shop, but Regina couldn’t help it with Lyla’s huge boobs being at eye level and all. They were magnificent. And store-bought, according to a conversation she’d overheard one morning when she passed her parents’ open bedroom door. She wanted to see that catalog.

  “Who’s with her?” Mica whispered.

  “
I can’t tell,” Justine whispered back, craning. The man’s generic pale shirt gave no hint to his identity, but whoever he was, he had to be roasting in those long sleeves. A local businessman? Regina thought she saw the flash of glasses, but sometimes her own spectacles reflected a glare.

  Lyla leaned forward; then twangy country music floated up to them. Lots of fumbling, then the front seats reclined. Regina’s heart thudded in her ears. “I think we’d better go.”

  Justine snorted. “No way, it’s just getting good.”

  “Yeah,” Mica said. “Shut up, spoilsport.”

  Regina swallowed hard and stayed put. Aunt Lyla’s hyena laugh rang out; then the man sprawled on top of Lyla, obscuring the yellow dress. He started flailing, and Lyla started wailing. The big Caddy bucked like a stallion.

  “Are they doing it?” Mica asked, mesmerized.

  “Sure sounds that way,” Justine said.

  Even though she couldn’t see anything specific, Regina’s stomach felt heavy and tingly. She wanted to bolt upright and run home. Instead she lay there, listening as Dwight Yoakum’s honky-tonk voice blended with the song of Lyla’s cries rolling up and down, up and down. “Yes… yes… yes.”

  “Yes, what?” Mica whispered.

  “Shut up,” Justine muttered.

  The man was thrashing away. Regina winced—was sex always this fierce?

  “Yes… yes… no—NO!” An inhuman scream rent the air, raising the hair on the back of Regina’s neck.

  The car stopped moving, and Lyla’s partner seemed to be scrambling, groping for the car door handle. Justine’s head jutted forward. “Something’s wrong.” At the unfamiliar concern leadening her voice, Regina’s heart bottomed out.

  “What?” Mica asked, then grunted when Justine whomped her one.

  Aunt Lyla lay still, but the man was a noisy commotion, flinging the passenger door open into the trunk of a small tree so hard the leaves shook. He tried to wedge his body through the opening, then heaved himself over the side of the car. He must have nudged the radio volume in the process, because Dwight Yoakum’s yodeling exploded into the clearing and echoed off the wall of rock supporting them. The noise spooked them and the man, who twisted sideways, fell, then got up and ran haphazardly away from them, tearing through the underbrush.