-=O=-***-=O=-
One run, however, was more than enough for Bennett Scott. Harper, crazy little kid, was eating it up, screaming and howling like a banshee all the way down the run, laughing hysterically when it was over, then begging all the way back up the slope to do it again.
“Mommy, Mommy, go fast, go fast!” she trilled.
If the ride wasn’t enough to give Bennett heart failure, the climb would finish the job, and by the time she’d reached the top again, she was gasping for breath and desperate for a cigarette.
“Mind if I sit this one out?” she asked Nest as they lined up for another run. That creepy guy Ross was standing off to the side, looking like he was about to be jumped or something, and if he didn’t have to go with his kid, then Bennett didn’t see why she should feel obligated to go with hers.
“Sure,” Nest agreed, peering at her. “Are you okay?”
Bennett shrugged. “Define okay. 1 just need a cigarette, that’s all.” She looked at Harper. “Honey, can you go with Nest, let Mommy take a break?”
The little girl gave her a questioning look, then nodded and turned away to say something to Kyle. He appeared to have hit it off with her, even if Little John hadn’t. Creepy kid for a creepy father. She felt sorry for him, but that’s the way things worked out. She should know.
Deliberately avoiding John Ross, who was looking somewhere else anyway, she moved away as the others took their place in line. She took a deep breath, her lungs aching with cold and fatigue, fished in her pocket for her cigarettes, knocked one loose from the pack, and reached for her lighter.
Someone else’s lighter flared right in front of her face, and she dipped her cigarette tip to catch the fire. Drawing in a deep lungful of heat and smoke, she looked into Penny’s wild green eyes.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Penny said, snapping shut the lighter.
Bennett exhaled and blew smoke in her face. “Get away from me.”
Penny smiled. “You don’t mean that.”
“Try me.” Bennett began to move away.
“Wait!” Penny caught up to her and kept pace as she walked. “I got something for you.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Sure you do. It’s good stuff. White lightning and mellow smoke. It’ll make you fly and glide all night. I took some earlier. Let me tell you, this town becomes a better place in a hurry.”
Bennett sucked on her cigarette and kept her gaze turned away. “Just leave me alone, all right?”
“Look, you hate it here as much as me. Don’t pretend you don’t.” Penny brushed at her wild hair, eyes darting everywhere at once, feral and hungry. “This town is for losers. It’s nowhere! I keep trying to find something to do besides sit around listening to Grandma snore. There’s not even a dance club! Bunch of bars with redneck mill workers and farmers. ‘How’s the crop this year, Jeb?’ ‘Oh, pretty fair, Harv.’ Like that. Only way to get past losing your mind is doing a little something to keep sane.”
“I’m off drugs.” Bennett stopped at the edge of the trees where the darkness grew so heavy she couldn’t make out even the trunks. She was already too far away from the light. “I’m clean and I’m staying clean.”
“State of mind, girl,” Penny sniffed. “There’s clean and there’s clean. You do what you want, what you need. You still stay clean.”
“Yeah, right.”
Penny shrugged. “So now what? You gonna go back up there for more toboggan fun?” Her eyes were on the platform, clearly outlined in the light. “Gonna join your friends?”
Bennett glanced up. Nest, Robert, and the children were standing on the platform, waiting to go next. “Maybe.”
Penny laughed, her angular frame twisting for emphasis. “You lie like a rug. You wouldn’t go back up there on a bet! But you make believe all you want, if it gets you through your pain. Me, I got a better way. Have a look at this.”
She took out a plastic pouch filled with brilliant white powder, took a little of the powder on her finger, and snorted it in. She gasped once, then grinned. “Mother’s milk, girl. Try a little?”