Free Slow Burn by Heather Graham Page A

you were Jared and skimmed by, paying other kids to do the work for you. But it wasn’t academics that really got David Delgado noticed—it was sheer athletic ability. The small private school had never had great baseball or football teams. With David playing, they suddenly began to win a few games. By the time they got to the rock pit on that particular afternoon, David was probably the most popular kid in the school. He could accept the acclaim that came his way, but he never sought it. He still did chores for his grandfather. He came to things when he chose and backed away when he chose, too. He was never with them at the country club dances or some of the other social events their parents planned for them.
    None of that mattered, or maybe it helped. To Spencer, just like the other girls in her circle—Cecily, Terry-Sue and Gina Davis—David Delgado was even more appealing because of that little touch of something different about him. He was the kind of boy their folks didn’t quite approve of; he wasn’t one of them. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t into drugs, didn’t rob convenience stores and was a hell of a lot more moral than most of the kids in their circle. What mattered was that he didn’t come from the old guard—that he was a refugee.
    Spencer didn’t give a damn. She thought it was wonderfully romantic—and erotic, a word she was beginning to find fascinating. Maybe there was something else a little bit deeper than those feelings, as well. She knew that Sly liked David. Really liked him. Not conditionally, the way her parents did. Sly just out and out liked David; it didn’t matter one iota to him whether David had come from Cuba or the moon. And for all her life, Sly had been Spencer’s favorite person. So if Sly approved of David…
    Actually, that day, thinking hadn’t really entered into it. It was summer, and the heat was piercing, and they’d packed picnic lunches. Spencer had gotten a brand new cherry red Jeep for her birthday, Jared had his mom’s last-year’s Volvo, Ansel Rhodes had a new Firebird, and David had a great ‘57 Chevy he had bought himself, earning the money at a photo lab where he worked Saturdays and some afternoons.
    Spencer almost wished she hadn’t gotten the damned car. She had driven that afternoon while Terry-Sue had all but crawled on top of David in the front seat of his car.
    Reva was with them that day. She was in Spencer’s class, but she’d become part of the gang because of her brother. She was in school due to the same strange magic that had gotten David in, the same “scholarship.” Sly denied that he was paying their tuition, but Spencer knew in her heart that he denied it only because he didn’t want David’s hardworking grandfather to think that he couldn’t do the best for his grandchildren on his own. Sly was great about that. He never needed accolades for doing what he thought was right.
    And Reva was sweet, so everyone enjoyed having her around. She had a disposition like gold; she laughed at everyone’s jokes. She was also an incredibly pretty girl, and the guys certainly appreciated that—not that any of them would consider touching her, or even cracking any of their adolescent jokes about her. Maybe David was being raised by a strange old Scottish grandfather, but he showed no lack of Cuban machismo where his sister was concerned. He watched over her like a hawk. But there was really no need, anyway. They were all friends. Just friends. Nobody was actually with anybody else.
    Except for Terry-Sue, who was still climbing all over David once the cars were parked, the blankets laid out and the food baskets set up.
    In her crimson bikini, lathered in suntan oil, Spencer was stretched out on one of the blankets, half in the sun, half out of it. She could feel her flesh turning hot, sticky. She could feel the heat beating down on her, then the