Riding the Thunder by Deborah MacGillivray Page A

for weeks before working up the courage to ask him. He’d been home, up all night cramming for finals, and looked deliciously sleepy when he answered the front door. Ooooh, she had just wanted to step against him and kiss that sexy mouth good morning. Instead, she’d made silly chitchat until she finally stammered out the words and asked him if he would take her. He’d smiled, listened to her request, and then laughed. He’d laughed!
    â€œNo way am I escorting you to the Junior Prom, Laura,” he’d said, “so just get it out of your pretty head. No college man in his right mind would be caught dead at a party for a bunch of juniors.”
    Her joy at him calling her pretty had soured as he’d shattered her dream of going with him. After that she’d wanted to stay home, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it, and when Erica Valmont put her foot down, there was no changing her mind. With mild distaste, Laura had accepted a date with nerdy Junior Donner—their mothers’ doing. Junior didn’t have a date either. It was hard to be the only ones staying home. With their class so small—only thirty-three—if you failed to attend you may as well hang a billboard around your neck announcing, ‘I’m a loser and can’t get a date.’ Thus, she’d come in the beautiful formal, feeling as pretty as a faery princess. A princess who lacked her prince.
    The night was almost hot, odd for May. The gentle breeze brushed against her bare arms with a gossamer touch, pushing her to feel restless. The pool whispered a tempting lure.
    â€œFor a double-dog-dare, I’d unhook my garters, bunch this damn petticoat up and go wading.” And she meant it.
    There was a lull in the tunes as the hired disc jockey, Rusty Rogers, from WAKY loaded 45s onto the spindle changer. Lesley Gore’s clear voice sang out that it was her party and she’d cry if she wanted to, cry if she wanted to, cry if she wanted to—causing Laura to glance up. She saw the group of college kids coming up the concrete stairs winding up the hillside to The Windmill’s clubhouse. Tommy was halfway back in the group of seven couples. Her heart dropped, and then started a slow thud as their eyes met.
    He was so handsome! He was wearing a white shawl tuxedo and wore it like a man, instead of like the juniors playing grown-up. Most of the guys still wore their hair in a pompadour in the front and combed into a ducktail in the back, a stubborn holdover from the late ’50s, showing styles were slow to die here. Brylcreem still made a tidy profit in Backwater Kentucky! But not Tommy. His hair was short, kept that way because the thick black curls were too wavy to do much else. The look suited him. He was elegance and male grace . . . and with another girl.
    â€œDamn him! Oh, how I’d love to kick him in the seat of his pants!”
    Catching her eyes on him, he smiled. Tears threatened, but he wouldn’t be able to see them from that distance. She reeled from the pain.
    â€œThe bastard couldn’t take little old Laura to her Junior Prom because a college senior couldn’t take a junior in high school, eh? Yet, he dares turn up with a date, he and his snotty college friends crashing the party. Ooooh.” She spun away, unable to look at him. Putting a hand to her stomach, she feared she might puke.
    The night had been crappy enough without having to face the one person in the whole world—the only person—she’d wanted to escort her.
    In her girlish dreams, Laura envisioned Tommy, handsome in his tux, them dancing slowly in some dark corner. Tommy stealing a first kiss. It’d been painful enough to have him laugh at her after she finally sucked up the courage to ask him to take her. His crashing the party with a girlfriend was about as cruel as he could get.
    In the background, Lesley Gore wailed obscenely about her boyfriend coming to her party with another