Free Black Girls and Bad Boys: Stealing Loretta by Neneh J. Gordon Page B

she’d been about to sleep with him too.
    Loretta got to her feet. There was one
thing she knew she had to do. First, she went home, jumped in the shower and
got changed.
    Geography had always been one of her
strengths. She was pretty sure she’d be able to locate that farm again. As long
as the farmer didn’t come out and ask her what she was doing in his field, she
was just as likely to find the money as Jordan was.
    Within half an hour she was in her Mini,
driving along the dirt track and up to the red barn. She parked up and got out
of the car. There was no point hanging around. She walked up past the barn and
into the field.
    Getting over to the fence took longer than
she remembered, but then she’d been running the night before. It looked like
the right spot. There wasn’t anywhere obvious for him to have stashed the
money. She climbed over the fence. It was easier in jeans.
    Walking the length of the fence, she combed
the ground.
    “Looking for something?” Jordan came
striding over to the fence, shaking his head. “I said I’d bring you the money.”
    Her heartbeat cranked itself up to a
deafening volume. It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered the possibility of
running into him. She just hadn’t been able to come up with a plan of action.
Swallowing the impulse to run up and slap him, she forced herself to say something.
“Thought I’d save you the trouble.” She kept looking for the money – focusing
on anything that wasn’t him – but there was no sign of it.
    He came over and leaned on top of the
fence. “It’s not over there.”
    She shouldn’t have bothered with the shower.
Then she would have got there earlier and found it before he arrived. “Okay.
Where is it?”
    He clambered over the fence, walked a good
twenty yards over to the right and picked up a tissue-wrapped bundle.
    Waiting for him to come back with it was
awful. Watching him get closer and knowing that in a few moments he’d climb
over that fence, walk to his car and drive away made her skin turn to ice.
    It would have been better if he’d never
bumped into her. Was it only two days ago? It felt like a lifetime.
    “Thanks.” She couldn’t look him in the eye.
Doing that would have pushed her over the edge into hysteria. It was all so
confusing. She should have hated him – and she did – but there was another part
of her that desperately wanted him to pull the ultimate explanation out of the
bag and make everything alright between them.
    “I’ll see you around.”
    Why do people even say that? It always
means the exact opposite.
    He walked away. The roll of money was like
a dead weight in her hand. Her chest tightened. She had to do something, but
what?
    “Jordan.”
    He stopped and time slowed down as she
waited for him to turn around.
    “What?”
    “Do you want to see what Edna looks like
with her new grille?”
    He shook his head. “Not a good idea.”
    It was so obvious that wasn’t what he wanted
to say at all. “Fine. Follow me over to mine and you can take the damn thing
back.” She was sick of him pretending to be so virtuous.
    “Loretta, I’m sorry.”
    She climbed over the fence. Time to make
the most dignified exit possible. She walked towards him, keeping her head
high.
    He turned away and started walking to his
car. She could see it off by the barn, just next to hers. Her brain was full to
bursting. So much to think her way through. How could she get out of this mess?
    Her feet went faster and she started to
close on him. He’d put her in this position. Robbed her bank, made her want him
then pushed her away. It didn’t make any sense. That was what tore her up the
most – she couldn’t figure out what he was trying to do.
    Anger rose up inside her and she threw the
banknotes at his back.
    “What the...?”
    “‘No rest for the wicked.’ It was you. In
the safety deposit room. It was you.”
    It took less than a second before he got
his mask back up, but it was too late. She’d seen the