Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Heather, do you remember Matt’s brother Isaac?” I played along like neither one of us had written Isaac’s name on the inside of a notebook between pages of pre-algebra problems.
She flipped her long, curly blond hair over her shoulder, igniting the surrounding air with the burning scent of ammonia from her new perm. Everyone had perms except me because my mom said the chemicals would damage my hair.
Like makeup clogged my pores.
Tight jeans made me look like a sinner.
And listening to “trashy” rock and roll disappointed my father and Thy Heavenly Father.
“Totally.” Heather grinned, gripping my arm tightly. “But you probably don’t remember me.” She scrunched her nose. “I would have been like twelve or thirteen when you were a senior.”
“Sorry,” Isaac shrugged. “No recollection. But I remember Sunday Morning because Matty talked about her nonstop. And I think I babysat her one or two times.”
“Sunday Morning?” Heather eyed me as if I were Isaac’s translator.
Pressing my lips together, I returned the slightest lift of my shoulders. I didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of Isaac, but I had no clue what or who he was talking about. Since he was six years older, I figured he knew more slang than I did.
“So I heard you went into the Army,” Heather said, brushing off Isaac’s cryptic comment.
“Did you now? I might have heard that too.” He was too cool. Too confident. Too everything.
Heather blushed as if Isaac were flirting with her, but when he glanced at me, I got a different, mocking vibe. It felt like he knew I’d had a crush on him before his brother became my first real boyfriend.
“Let’s go, Sarah,” Mom called, nodding toward the parking lot.
“I’m having dinner at Matt’s house,” I told Heather, punctuating it with a frown.
“Fine.” She tried a pouty face but failed because she was enamored with Isaac. “Nice seeing you,” she said, nervously rubbing her hands down the front of her dress.
Isaac returned a subtle “mm-hmm” while keeping his gaze on me.
As Heather moseyed in the opposite direction, I buttoned and unbuttoned the top of my cardigan at least three times. “I guess I’ll see you at your house,” I said, surveying the area. “If you see Matt, tell him I’m riding with my parents.”
Isaac nodded with his lips twisted. And when I walked a few feet away from him, he said, “Sure thing, Sunday Morning.”
I stopped and glanced over my shoulder. “I’m Sunday Morning?”
“Who else do you think Matty talked about?”
Matt and I started dating during our sophomore year, but I didn’t know he’d had a crush on me since we were twelve. Then again, crushes were usually secrets.
“Sunday Morning Sarah.” Isaac grinned. “Matty’s first wet dream.”
I choked on my gasp and a little saliva. Isaac Cory said wet dream just beyond the front doors to my father’s church.
He put the Devil in Devil’s Head.
CHAPTER TWO
MICHAEL JACKSON, “P.Y.T. (PRETTY YOUNG THING)”
The Corys were third-generation ranchers who owned most of the land in Devil’s Head. While Matt was nearly perfect in everyone’s eyes, he had no interest in taking over the ranch or farming the land as his legacy, like the men before him. That put Wesley Cory in a predicament since Isaac had proven to be a disappointment. The Army was the Cory family’s last hope to salvage their eldest son’s soul.
As we pulled down the long gravel road toward their white, two-story, twentieth-century farmhouse, a shadow caught my eye, followed by a puff of smoke. Isaac was leaning on an old cottonwood, one boot propped against the trunk and a cigarette in his hand. Thankfully, no one else noticed him. Had my sisters spotted him, they would have tattled immediately, and it could have sparked another “smoking will kill you” lecture from my parents.
I hated the smell of cigarette smoke, but Isaac made it look cool and sexy, like the Marlboro Man—every parent’s worst nightmare.
Dad parked in our usual spot beside the detached two-car garage, and the five of us spilled out of our light-blue Ford Crown Victoria. He popped the trunk, and we loaded our arms with pies and dinner rolls that Mom contributed to Violet’s Easter ham dinner.
As we trekked up the dirt path toward the screened-in porch, gravel crunched beneath the tires of Matt’s red 1972 El Camino, stopping in front of the garage. The car was an early graduation present from his grandparents.
Matt jumped out and jogged toward us. “Let me get that,” he said, taking the rhubarb pie from my mom just in time to open the screen door for us.
Matt grinned when I stepped past him, bringing up the rear with the basket of dinner rolls I helped form into knots. “You look pretty, Sarah,” he said with a generous smile.
“She really does,” Isaac chimed.
“Shut up,” Matt mumbled.
“What?” Isaac held open the door while Matt led me into the house. “P.Y.T.,” he murmured behind me so only I could hear him.