Dare Truth Or Promise

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Book: Read Dare Truth Or Promise for Free Online
Authors: Paula Boock
Tags: Romance, Young Adult, glbt
it was heavy and warm to touch. Louie let go and rushed to the car where she fumbled with the doors. She felt stupid again, like this afternoon in the library, and her hands still tingled with rough wool.
    “Dipstick, Judas,” Willa was grumbling at him. “Why d’you always have to go first, huh?”
    Willa loved Tony’s flash car. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she said, running her hand along the leather seat. “What’s the engine?”
    “Engine?” Louie shrugged, changed gears jerkily and followed the road north, her heart still scudding. From behind Judas panted happily in her ear. He had terrible breath and was fogging up the windscreen. “I wouldn’t have a clue.” She looked at Willa in the passenger seat. “Would you?”
    Willa smiled in reply and turned on the demister. “A bit.” Louie watched her hands on the dashboard. Willa had very small, fine hands with milky fingernails, and on her right ring finger she wore a plain gold band. Louie wanted to ask her about it.
    “How come? Engines, I mean,” said Louie, wondering suddenly if Willa had a boyfriend.
    “My father taught me. He’s dead,” she said, looking at Louie briefly. “He used to be a truckle. He drove them, and he raced them, and he didn’t have any sons. So I spent half my childhood under the chassis of the
Buffalo.
That was his home town,” she explained. “Buffalo, New York.”
    The car headed up Opoho Road almost by itself. Louie had no idea where she was heading. “American?”

    “Even liked apple pie, and cried at the anthem. He left when he was a teenager. Came to the big time in Dunedin instead.”
    Willa laughed and shrugged. “He was a hippie. And he met Jolene.”
    The road narrowed and veered steeply uphill, leaving the suburban houses behind. It was perfect. Louie swung the car round a bend to the right and felt the tyres grip beneath her. Everything ahead was blackness and bush.
    Willa opened her window and tucked her legs up onto the seat. The air blew in the cool, deep smells of the native forest. “Faster,” she said quietly, almost as if to herself. Louie paused for a moment then put her foot down and something wild shot through her limbs. The engine surged and gravel spat out to each side of the car. They both leaned to the left and right as the car swung up the winding road, its high beam lighting up the bush ahead.
    As they rounded the final corner they saw the road widened into a circle of grass and a carpark, and to the right rose the dark shape of a monument. Louie put on the brakes and some loose stones clattered under the car.
    Beyond the monument were the lights of the city. Everything else was black. As Louie opened her door, it swung beyond her hand with the force of the wind on the hilltop. She got out and was knocked a pace backwards—”Wo!”—then she grabbed the car door and heaved it shut again. Willa let Judas out from the back and he leapt away into the darkness.
    The monument was a big rectangular shape with what looked like a flagpole on top, but there was no flag. On either side sat giant carved figures of pioneers—one male, one female, wrapped in stone robes and sitting cross-legged like Scottish Buddhas. Louie and Willa felt their way along the railings to the front of the monument. Ahead of them was the fabulous view of the city. The harbour was a black space in the middle, and all around it the yellow, white and red lights spread out over the hills like a huge embroidered coverlet. Above, the stars seemed incredibly close, crushed glass flung across the sky. The wind was freezing and roared in Louies ears. She opened her mouth wide and gasped into it. Across from her she could just make out Willa’s hair whipping about, and watched her raise a pale hand to hold it.

    Louie found some steps leading below the monument to a gravel path and bushes. “Here!” she yelled at Willa. “Come down here, it’s more sheltered.”
    There was a rustle in the shrubs beside her and Louie jumped.

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