Famous Last Words

I’d never been inside the garage, but it was neat and well organized, and I had no problem finding a shovel. I was on my way back out, with the shoe box tucked under my arm and the shovel in my hand, when the door opened to reveal Reed.

He gasped when he saw me, and for my part, I shrieked and dropped the shoe box with a thunk.

“Willa!” he said, letting out a startled burst of laughter. “I didn’t expect to see you in here.”

After a few days of not seeing him, I’d forgotten how cute he was, with his sun-kissed skin and perfectly mussed hair.

I bent to scoop the box off the floor and then held up the shovel. “I just came for this. What are you doing here?”

“It’s Saturday,” he said. “I came to get the Porsche for her weekly bath.”

Mom and Jonathan had been pla

“Did he even drive it this week?” I asked.

Reed sat in the driver’s seat long enough to turn on the ignition. Then he climbed out while the engine rumbled and purred. “All the more reason it needs to get out on the road for a few minutes. You can’t let a car sit too long. It’ll dry-rot.”

I nodded, as if I knew anything about cars.

Reed stepped closer to the Porsche and rubbed at an invisible speck on the paint.

Seeing him like this — in black board shorts and a faded yellow T-shirt, as handsome as a movie star, I couldn’t help but think about our kiss. About how crazy I was for letting him slip between my fingers.

I wondered if he ever thought about kissing me. And then I told myself that there was no way on earth.

“How’ve you been lately?” he asked.

“Um, good,” I said. “Surprisingly good.”

“I saw the picture of you and your friend at the premiere.” He shook his head. “That was wild.”

“Mom and Jonathan definitely thought so,” I said, unable to hide the dark note in my voice.

“Willa … are you sure you’re all right?”

I was surprised by the question. “Yeah. I am.”

“You don’t seem like yourself.” He smiled disarmingly. “You don’t usually grumble.”

Maybe you don’t know me very well, I thought.

Before I knew what was happening, Reed stepped toward me, then leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on my lips.

The opportunity to be kissed by someone who kisses like Reed isn’t the kind of thing a girl takes lightly. I felt a familiar flutter in my stomach, tingly weakness in my arms and legs. I kissed him back, relishing the delicate pressure of his hands on my back as he pulled me closer.

He drew away for a moment and looked down at me, his eyes a question.

When I didn’t say anything, he leaned in and touched his lips to mine again. With every second that passed, I felt reality melting away. Who needed to think about murders and missing movies and haunted houses? It was so easy to get lost in his warmth and his delicious scent and the sensation of his fingers moving lightly through my hair….

In the pocket of my yoga pants, my phone buzzed.

I jumped, startled back to the present.

Reed stared at me for a beat, looking equally dazed. His voice was soft and throaty. “There’s something about you that makes me forget to care that your stepfather is my boss.”

The word stepfather further obliterated the mood for me. I gave him as polite a smile as I could manage and looked at the floor. There was a small puddle of standing water a couple of feet away, reflecting the sunlight.

His gaze dropped to his hands. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m no gentleman.”

How do you respond to that?

Reed cleared his throat. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Of course.”

“My parents were killed in a plane crash when I was fifteen,” he said.

Pronouncements like that should come with a warning label. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. “My God, Reed, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I know you know what it’s like to lose a parent, so …”

“I do,” I said, feeling like I was being tumbled end over end. “It’s … it’s terrible.”

He chewed on his bottom lip. “I lived with my grandfather while I finished school. He moved here from Denver to take care of me, but he was in pretty poor health. So he passed away, too, shortly after I graduated from Langhorn.”

I didn’t say a word.

“I never had any brothers or sisters, and my dad wasn’t close with his siblings, so I was basically on my own. I couldn’t afford college, so I went looking for work in the industry. I interviewed with Jonathan for this job, and somehow, miraculously, I got it, even though I had zero qualifications. Jonathan’s been like the big brother I never had. He looks out for me. He’s tough, but it’s because he wants me to learn and do well. He’s meticulous and exacting, but it just makes me work harder. He’s my role model. I can’t even tell you how much his good opinion means to me.”

“Wow,” I said, considering Jonathan in a new light. After all, he’d married a widow with a teenage daughter. He did everything he could to make me feel at home. He kept trying to be cordial to me, even when there was a huge chasm between us. I felt guilty for my hostility toward him, and guiltier still that I’d suspected him of being a murderer last night.

“I feel co

“Uh, yeah,” I said, managing to smile.

“So … what if we don’t try to sneak around?” Reed asked. “What if we just ask Jonathan if it’s all right?”

Making things more official? Telling Jonathan? I’d gotten pretty comfy with the idea that Reed and I would never be a thing. (Then again, I’d gotten comfy with the idea that I wasn’t going to be kissing him anymore, and look what happened to that plan.)

I was more than flattered by his romantic interest in me — who wouldn’t be? But I couldn’t shake the feeling that, on some level, we didn’t co

Like Wyatt does, I thought. And then I stood there, stu

“Reed … I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t know.”

My phone buzzed again.

“Sorry, I’m blowing up over here,” I said, in a lame attempt to lighten the mood. I reached into my pocket and switched the phone to vibrate. “Who knew I was so popular?”

Reed nodded. “Anyway, I should get going. And you should get … digging?” He glanced at the shovel with one eyebrow raised.

I forced myself to look somber. “Dead bird on the patio. I figured it deserves a proper burial.”

Confusion flashed across his face, which I could totally understand. Burying a dead bird in a shoe box was more of an activity for the under-ten set.

I wondered if it might cause him to rethink his interest in me. And whether that was a good or bad thing.

Reed climbed into the Porsche, and I watched him drive out of the garage. I gave him a quick wave before starting through the house into the backyard.

I left the shoe box inside while I went to dig a hole down by the citrus trees. I’d never seen Mom or Jonathan go anywhere near that part of the yard, so there was hardly any chance that the box would be discovered.

It was a warm day, and I was coated with sweat almost instantly. Plus, digging a hole a foot deep was a lot harder than I thought it would be. You don’t just slide the shovel into the soft soil — the dirt here was packed like stone.