Wild in the Field Read Free Page B

mixed cocktail that caused psychotic behavior. It was a tragic accident, their attorney claimed. The boys weren’t hardened criminals, nothing like that. And the judge had given them the most lenient sentences possible.
    That’s when the rage was born. Camille remembered the day in court, feeling the slow, huge, hot well of disbelief. A few years in jail and they’d be out. Easy for them. They hadn’t lost their soul mate. They hadn’t lost anything but a few years, where she’d lost everything. Her life had been completely, irreversibly, hopelessly destroyed.
    She stared blankly at the cracks in the stucco ceiling, hearing the drizzle of rain. Inside of her there was nothing but a hollow howl. It wasn’t getting any better. She couldn’t seem to think past the red-sick haze of rage. She’d tried curling up for days. She’d tried not eating.She’d tried hurling things and breaking things. She’d tried silence. She’d tried—and was still trying—drinking.
    No matter what she tried, though, she couldn’t seem to make it pass. She couldn’t go under, around, through it. The rage was just there.
    At some point, she got up and finished the shot of Kahlúa.
    And at some point after that, she jerked out of the rocker and chased fast for the bathroom. The Kahlúa was as worthless as all the other darn liquors. It refused to stay down.
    By the time she finished hurling, she was extra mean. She stood in the bathroom doorway, sweat beading on her brow, weakness aching in every muscle in her damn body. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to lift a dust ball. Her throat felt as it had been knifed open and her stomach as if she’d swallowed hot steel wool.
    With her luck, she was going to end up the first wanna-be alcoholic in history with an allergy to alcohol. Either that, or Kahlúa had joined the long list of liquors her body seemed to reject.
    Thinking that possibly she could nap—and maybe even sleep this time—she turned toward the bedroom…just as she heard another knock on the door.
    â€œAw, come on, Violet. I’ll come up to the house for dinner. But right now, just leave me alone.”
    â€œIt’s not Violet. It’s me. Your neighbor. Pete MacDougal.”
    A charge volted through her pulse as if she’d touched a volatile electric cord. Pete didn’t have to identify himself for her to recognize his voice. There was a time that voice would have comforted her. Pete’sclipped tenor was part of her childhood, as familiar as the rail fence and the tree house in the big maple and the toboggan hill between the MacDougals and Campbells.
    She’d never played with Pete because he was older, Violet’s age. But she’d toddled after him for years with puppy eyes. When he was around, he’d lift her over the fence so she wouldn’t have to walk around, and he’d pulled her sled back up the hill, and he’d let her invade the sacred tree house when all the other kids said she was still a baby.
    Pete was not just her childhood hero; he’d been an extra zesty spice to her blood because the four year age difference made him forbidden. Further, he was ultracool, with his biker shoulders and thick dark hair and smoky eyes. He was the oldest of three brothers, where she was the youngest of three sisters, which she’d always felt gave them a key connection. What that connection was, she’d never pinned down exactly. She’d just wanted to have something in common with Pete MacDougal. Coming from three-children families and living in Vermont had seemed enough to be critical bonding factors when she was a kid.
    Those memories were all sweet and a little embarrassing and definitely fun—but not now. Right now , she didn’t want to see anyone she’d once cared about, and Pete’s voice, specifically, hurt like a sting. He had one of those full-of-life, uniquely male