Page 124 of Dark, Forbidden, & Taboo

Hope you’re ready for me, old friend,I mused with a chuckle as I squared my shoulders and stuck my tongue out at the old bitch.

After her appalled reaction, I whistled cheerfully on the rest of the way out of the store.

Tonight would be the perfect time to set my plan in motion.

And if it didn’t work, then I’d have tomorrow and the day after that to try again.

Chapter

Three

Nightfall came quickly.

I hadn’t been prepared to feel any emotion other than bravery but for some reason, I felt afraid instead. I had never been very good at being impressing anyone and my long lost best friend was still a big deal to me.

It seemed that the little girl that thought she outgrew her need to feel loved was rearing her head again.

Common sense told me that there would be other ways to let Cedar know that I was still in Temecula, but my heart told me that this was the only way to be sure.

I sat in my car trying to steel my resolve.

Where most little girls wanted to be princesses, I wanted to be the dragon that guarded the castles. The ones that would keep the princes from saving them—the very thing that Cedar Brenton had been to me.

“Ain’t no boy alive that’s gonna treat you better than me, Dottie. And if he tells you any different, he’s a liar and I’ll set his house on fire.”

Leaning back in my seat, I let out a chuckle as I turned my eyes toward the vast field of the local winery.

Most people would start a fire on the brick and mortar building, but Cedar taught me to attack nature and it would take care of the rest as it struggled to survive.

“It wants to die, you know. It just needs someone brave enough to start the spark; that’s when you can watch it turn to embers.”

I’ve heard his voice so often in my head that it made it damn near impossible to differentiate hopes from reality.

Sometimes I’d wake up from a dream of us running through fields as kids, watching Cedar help nature die, and heard his voice so clearly that I would almost be able to swear that he was in the room with me.

But it’s been a lie each and every time and it only accelerated once I saw him on the news.

Time tore us apart, but fate was driving us back to each other.

I just had to be brave enough to get out of the car and start the spark he had always been so fond of.

The innocence in being a child that valiantly chased after her friend and encouraged his misadventures and what I’d become now was a stark contrast.

I didn’t have Cedar anymore and while I had many misadventures of my own, none of them seemed as meaningful as they did with him.

And because of that, I decided that maybe tonight wouldn’t be the best time to light the skies on fire and call out to my best friend.

Part Two

Cedar

Chapter

Four

Sicily Granger was still awake when I got home, and I knew she’d be upset even though she had no right to be.

Our arrangement consisted of nothing more than her keeping the house, cooking, and all of the other domestic things I never learned to do in return for my providing a roof over her head and paying all the bills.

---