Defy the Dark by Saundra Mitchell Read Free Book Online

sets his piece in the white box, and reaches for the ribbon.
    â€œMay I?” he asks, and his hands are reaching toward me before I can speak. His fingertips brush the sides of my neck and my breath catches in my throat. When he’s done tying the ribbon around my ponytail, he pulls away and again those warm hands touch my skin. “Red looks good in your hair.”
    My turn to confess. “That’s why I picked it.”
    His eyes sparkle and I realize I’ve given him a gift.
    He turns and stretches his long, beautiful arm up to the bed and slides a book down. “Chemistry?” he asks, already leafing through the pages.
    I smile and wonder if the innuendo was intended.
    But I guess it doesn’t matter.
    As I sit, my shoulder brushing his, the bliss of butterscotch on my tongue, I know what will happen. I see it laid out before me like a film. Jeremy and me, hiding in plain sight, living our elaborate lie. I’ll wear the red ribbon, and no one will even notice. Except Jeremy, who will say nothing. Not in front of anyone, anyway. Never together in the daylight, we will laugh, and drink, and flirt, sharing only the rarest of secret glances.
    But at night, we will be here.
    Perhaps there will be kisses one day. Perhaps we will be lovers.
    But that doesn’t matter. Because now I know.
    When the sun goes down we will be
    Together.
    I will be
    Myself.
    And we will find
    Truth.

Dia Reeves
    The Dark Side of the Moon
    W hen Cado snuck up on Patricia in her backyard, her first reaction was not to scream but to thwack him over the head with a silver watering can.
    And that was what he loved about her.
    â€œOh my God, Cado!” She dropped the watering can and tried to break his fall as he wilted into the petunias. “I’m so sorry!”
    â€œNot as sorry as me,” said Cado, blinking away stars similar to the red, white, and blue ones he’d seen strung in the redbud trees along the block as he’d driven up.
    Charter was less than an hour from Portero, both towns hidden within the East Texas piney woods, but while Charter consisted of unlovely acres of livestock and hay farms, Portero could have been carved out of gingerbread. By pixies. Stars in the trees, cobblestones in the streets, flowers in all the gardens. A place that charmed and disarmed with its tweeness . . . and then thwacked you over the head.
    After she’d checked to her satisfaction that she hadn’t cracked his skull into a million pieces, Patricia threw herself into Cado’s arms and rolled him around in the flowers like she thought she was a milkmaid. “You’re not even supposed to be here until tomorrow!”
    â€œI know, but I wanted to sleep over, and I figured your folks wouldn’t’ve agreed if I had asked first.”
    â€œThat’s amazingly diabolical.” Patricia’s kiss was like a stamp of approval. “My influence is finally rubbing off on you.”
    But she didn’t ask why he’d come early, probably assuming he wanted to catch her in the shower or something predictable like that. Patricia knew a lot, like what all the initials in the Wall Street Journal stood for and how to apply lipstick so that it never smeared no matter how hard Cado kissed her. But she didn’t know him. Not as well as she thought she did.
    He sat up and rescued the bouquet of daylilies from where he’d dropped them after getting clobbered. The petals matched the setting sun and blazed against the black of Patricia’s dress as he presented them to her. “I brought this for you.”
    â€œWhy?” Patricia asked, hip deep in flowers, yet staring at the daylilies as if they were alien babies.
    â€œBecause you like flowers. Duh.”
    â€œNot as a symbol of love. Those are going to wither and die in a week. Is that what you think about our relationship? That it’s going to wither and die in a week?”
    â€œNo,” he said after realizing the