by KB Anne
“It’s nothing.” I tried to pull my head away to no avail.
“Starr, tell me,” he said. His touch clouded my judgment. I couldn’t think straight; I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be upset about in the first place.
“I’m okay,” I murmured. The energy he passed me through his touch entered my body like an adrenaline rush. “I’m okay,” I replied again more firmly and stepped back. He assessed me. I forced out a smile. “Isn’t there a trail we’re supposed to be walking on or were you just trying to frighten me on purpose?”
He half smiled, but his jaw remained tight. He didn’t buy my “I’m okay act,” but I couldn’t let him worry about me all the time. I needed to get myself together.
I put my hand on my hip. “Sometime today would be nice.”
He studied my face—probably wondering if he should press me for information or not. He must have decided not to because he and Demon broke from the field. He wove the large horse in and out of a large stand of pine trees. The fresh scent of crushed pine needles filled the air as Little Miss and I followed behind them. He led Demon over to a huge thicket of rhododendron bushes. Just as I was certain they would crash into the middle of one of the bushes, they disappeared. Curious, I led Little Miss over and discovered a narrow entryway between the bushes onto what I could only assume was the trail. When he said trail, I envisioned a wide, smooth walkway, not the narrow, overgrown, rocky path he led me on. “The trail doesn’t see a lot of traffic, does it?” I was gifted at stating the obvious, but I wanted to talk to him about something other than me.
“No. My granpappy made it for the sole purpose of getting to the cabin. He liked his privacy. Most people don’t even know the lake exists. It’s on the big maps, but the land’s been privately owned for so long, it’s really only me and some people from Cherokee who know about it.”
The trail grew wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side.
“My people believe the lake is sacred. We gather water from it for ceremonies and use the lake in the summer to cleanse their spirits. My granpappy was good friends with the Cherokee even before he met my grandmother. When he inherited the land from his father, he made a pact with the tribal council that the Cherokee could use the lake.”
“Do they come often?”
“Not really, it’s pretty far from the tribal lands. I was good friends with some of the kids. We spent summers by the lake, fishing and swimming….” His eyes were a million miles away.
“You really miss it, don’t you?” Again, Queen of the Obvious.
He stared off into space. “I do. Is there any time more special than childhood? No worries, no pain. Then out of nowhere something happens, and bam! Your life changes forever. The end of innocence.”
“I know the feeling….”
He turned to me. His eyes were sad. “You do, don’t you?”
I nodded my head.
“Is that what happened back in the field?”
“That…,” I sighed, “and the pain I’m causing my parents.”
“Pain you’re causing?” he said, his eyes incredulous. “How are you causing them pain?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I snapped.
“And?”
“And my parents think I’m dead. I’m sure they’re a wreck, and here I am enjoying myself on a little adventure into the wilderness while my parents mourn me,” I cried.
“First of all, you are protecting your parents from the Organization by not going to them. Second, you are alive and someday, you’ll get to be with them again.”
“You don’t know that,” I argued.
“I do know. Someday, you’ll go home again. You just have to trust me, and by the way, you aren’t on a vacation enjoying yourself. You are running away from, not only some freakin’ crazy organization that wants you to be an assassin, but also psycho grandparents who want to kidnap you.” He paused for a second. “What’s with them anyway?” His eyes were so sincere, so concerned, I wanted to, I needed to tell my guardian angel everything.
An image of my grandparents popped into my head. The anger replaced the pain I felt moments before. I led Little Miss up the trail. He walked next to me with Demon—the horses as companionable as we seemed to be. “I was seven years old when my dad died.”
“I’m sorry Starr. What happened?”
“We just got back from visiting my grandparents. Dad was on his way home from work when some drunk driver jumped lanes and smashed right into him. He died on impact.” I bit my lip to hold back the tears. He died ten years ago, but the pain still felt fresh.
Christian put his hand on my cheek. “You don’t have to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to.”
“I want to but it’s hard. I’ve never told anyone about my dad, not even Frank.” I took a deep breath to steady myself and stepped away from him. If I was to continue with this story, I couldn’t have him touching me. My cheek still tingled from his hand. “After the funeral, my grandparents came back to our house. I remember them yelling and screaming in my dad’s study. I was so scared that my grandparents would take me away from my mom. After they left, my mom kept hugging me and telling me everything was going to be okay, chanting it over and over again. That night, she packed up our car and we left. I never saw my grandparents again until the other day.”
“Did they try to find you?”
“Probably, but we left so suddenly, so completely, that we disappeared. We changed our names and moved to Webster. A few years later, my mom met Paul, my second dad, who is also an architect. They got married. The rest is history.”
“So, what was your name before?”
It had been almost ten years since I’ve said the name aloud. “Jessalyn Silverlain.”
“How did you come up with Starr?”
I angled my head toward the sky and smiled at the memory. Tears formed at the corner of my eyes. “My dad used to call me his Star.”
“I think he’d be pleased with your way of remembering him.”
Chewing the inside of my lip, I scratched Little Miss behind the ear. “He saved my life you know.”
“Who did?”
“My dad. In the library, we used to watch the stars together. He’d make up all sorts of stories about the shooting stars and wishes. When I was searching for a way to escape, I looked up at the ceiling and realized that the shooting stars weren’t real stars, but painted images. I remembered other memories and used the clues to get out of the mansion.” A lone robin soared through the air on the trail ahead of us, the path of his flight captured by the sun.
If the Silverlains were in fact faeries, we left the magic behind long ago. No need to share what was already gone.
“I didn’t know where the tunnels would lead me. I just knew I had to get away from my grandparents. They were part of a life I gave up long ago.”
Guilt ate at me for not sharing my entire story with Christian, but it seemed too big of a stretch to tell him I thought I was a faerie princess and my dad was a faerie prince when we lived in a mundane world. Plus the only magic I seemed to possess was the glamour hiding my faerie appearance and some night vision.
“Now, the Organization has made me give up another life.” I looked over at him. “How many more do you think I have left?”
He gathered my hands to his chest. “As many as you need Starr, as many as you need.”
Chapter Nineteen
As we stepped around a giant rhododendron bush, a meadow opened before us. A kaleidoscope of yellow, red, purple, and white wildflowers exploded across the field. There was a cute little cabin perched on the top of a small hill overlooking the lake in the middle of the meadow. Rays of sunshine danced across the ripples of the water. Mountains rose up to meet the heavens.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it,” I whispered, mesmerized by the beauty before me.
He turns to me his forehead wrinkled in return. “Really?”
“It’s perfect!”
He g
rabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Let’s go see the cabin.”
The response in my body to his touch was immediate. Electrical currents rushed through me taking my breath away. Did he feel this electricity too? I peeked over at him under my eyelashes. His breath was even, and he held my hand like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the whole world. Was the tension between us just a figment of my imagination? Was I making our situation into something more than it was? Maybe I was just in the right place at the right time. Damn chemistry.
“Home, sweet home,” he sang as he jumped onto the front porch with a gigantic leap. “Let’s check it out.”
I eyed the distance from where Christian once stood next to me to the front porch. It was a good twelve or thirteen feet. He must have been a long jumper in track.
He ducked his head back out. “Coming?”
I didn’t even attempt to jump half the distance. I sprinted instead.
The one room cabin captured the essence of a dream—colorful homemade quilts spread across the beds, a potbelly cook stove in the corner of the kitchen area, a large stone fireplace in the main living area, a four-poster log bed on one side of the cabin, and two sets of bunk beds on the other. I ran another quick inventory, because I missed something of vital importance. “Uh, where’s the bathroom?”
He grabbed my hand and led me out of the cabin. I wasn’t sure when we started holding hands all the time, but I liked it. He took me around the side of the cabin to the back. There standing in front of me was a tiny wood building with a crescent moon carved in the door. I might not have been outdoorsy, but I knew what the building was.
“Outhouse. That’s not a problem, is it?” He tilted his head, his lips turned up in a grin, but I didn’t miss the worry in his eyes. It was like a storm cloud on a clear blue day.
“Nope, no problem.” I pressed my lips together and tried to smile, but something else concerned me. “Where do we take showers?”
“You like to swim, don’t you?” He pointed to the lake. “Problem?”
Memories of Sami skinny-dipping with James surfaced. My cheeks grew warm, and I was painfully aware that he was watching me. “No-pe,” I replied sounding much braver than I actually felt. “No problem.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll go get our things.”
“I’ll help!” I jogged to catch up with him. He moved freakishly fast or he left me dazed and confused so often, it took me longer than normal to return to myself. He began unloading the horses heaving the bags onto his back like he was some sort of pack mule.
“Uhhh, I can carry some stuff too!” I rested my hands on my hips.
He flashed me his lopsided smile without a hint of guilt. “Here.”
He handed me what must have been the two lightest bags in the pile. I followed him inside and set them on the bottom bunk.
“What are you doing?” he asked me.
“Uhh,” I replied, dumbfounded because I felt it was pretty clear what I was doing. “I’m laying claim to one of the bunks. Is that okay?”
“Take the other one.” He indicated the four-poster bed with his head. His arms were still full of bags and supplies.
“I’m not going to take the big bed when I’m a guest. You take it. The bunks will be great!”
A loud annoyed grunt echoed through the cabin. “Starr, will you take the bed please? You don’t always get your way, ya know.”
I opened my mouth because of course, I was about to argue with him that I didn’t always get my way, but another storm brewed in his blue eyes warning me not to. I kept my mouth shut and headed over to the bed. I dropped the bags on the floor, plopped down on the bed, and planned to really make a spectacle of myself by flailing my arms and legs in every direction.
The last thing I remember was laying back and closing my eyes.
Chapter Twenty
The yummy homey scent of baking woke my stomach along with the rest of me. I stretched in bed, feeling warm and well-rested, though I didn’t remember falling asleep. The lovely weight of heavy blankets cocooned me in a cozy nest, but I didn’t cover myself with them. My guardian angel did. He always looked out for me when I seemed incapable of taking care of myself.
“Good morning, Sunshine!” he sang from the kitchen. I never pegged School Christian as a morning person or a singer for that matter, but this Christian was far more than what he once appeared to be. “I made you blueberry muffins.”
A contented sigh escaped from my lips before I could stop it. I shyly glanced over at him. He pretended to be busy buttering his muffin at the table, but I didn’t miss his pleased grin. I was such an idiot sometimes, but at least he seemed to appreciate it. I climbed out of my nest and stretched again. “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”
His brow knit in confusion. “Agenda?”
“Agenda, as in, what we are going to do today?”
“Starr,” he said, shaking his head like a parent, “at the lake, agendas are not permitted. We go with the flow and have fun. There are no rules or guidelines.”
I scratched my head. I was used to rules and guidelines. I liked rules and guidelines. That’s how I got things done. I didn’t really know what to do with myself without them. “Uh, okay.”
He sensed my confusion because he offered a solution. “How about some swimming?”
“Great! Oh no…” I smacked my hand over my mouth. The fresh air and a full-night’s sleep were causing me to say whatever came to mind, and that wasn’t always a good thing.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have a suit,” I said trying my best not to whine.
“Look in your bags,” he said, disappearing out the cabin door, wearing board shorts.
I rifled through the bags and found a bikini top and bottom. I laid them out on the bed and stepped back. Sami, Jovie, and I spent our summers in bikinis, but somehow wearing a bikini in front of Christian seemed risqué, especially a suit he picked out for me. I held it up. It wasn’t a string bikini, but I found it hard to believe that he couldn’t find a suit with a little more coverage.
I slipped it on and examined myself. The bottom rode low on my hips, and the top covered what it needed to, but nothing more. There was no way I was walking down to the lake wearing just a bikini. I grabbed a Roxy t-shirt from another bag and pulled it on.
I stepped off the porch and into the sunshine. The sunlight kissed my cheeks in greeting. A freedom I hadn’t felt in days grew inside me. The Organization couldn’t possibly find me here, and my grandparents had no idea what happened to me. I imagined their faces when they returned to the library and discovered I was missing and wouldn’t be joining them on their own thrones of silver. As far as they were concerned, I disappeared into thin air, and I planned to keep it that way. It felt good to finally win at something again.
Laughing to myself, I skipped down to the lake, but the sight before me stopped me dead in my tracks. I blinked a few times unable to believe my eyes. Christian was sitting on a boulder a few feet off the shoreline, and not just Christian, but Christian with his shirt off. Rays of sunshine reflected off his shoulder length black hair. Looking more like a pagan god, than an eighteen-year-old teenage boy, I really saw Christian, all of Christian, for the first time.
Sure, I noticed him at school—I mean I wasn’t completely oblivious, but why didn’t I make more of an effort to talk to him? Sure he blew me off, but I should have tried harder. Was I that absorbed in my own life to miss the pain and the hurt raging behind his dirty looks? The answer to that question was a simple one. Yes, yes I was.
He turned to me and asked, “Did you say something?”
Oh god, diarrhea of the mouth much? “N…no.” My cheeks burned again, an all too common occurrence with Christian around. I hoped I was far enough away that he couldn’t see me blushing.
He leapt off the boulder and onto the shoreline. A few rocks scattered across the bank as he landed. “Are you okay? You seem a little out of it.”
That was an understat
ement. “It’s just this place. It’s so beautiful, like out of a fairy tale.”
Fairy tale? More like Faerie tale, and really Starr? What are you Cinderella?
He walked over to an aluminum canoe. A wood paddle was propped against the hull. “Coming?”
“I thought we were going swimming?” I tried not to sound disappointed and tried hard not to stare at his muscular chest and his two...four…six…ah, eight pack.
One would think as a seasoned swimmer, I would be used to guys walking around without shirts, but his washboard abs were my kryptonite.
“Don’t worry, we will. Let the water warm up a little. I’ll show you around the lake first. Is that okay?” He slanted his head to the side awaiting for my approval
Go with the flow, Starr. Go with the flow. “Sure,” I responded cheerfully. “Let’s go.”
“Great! Come on.” He grabbed my hand and helped me into the canoe. He set me down so I faced him instead of the bow of the boat. “I can’t wait to show you all the best fishing holes, the best spots to pick blueberries, and the best spots to swim.”
In one graceful leap, he was in the canoe and paddling away from the shoreline. His excitement grew as he told me all about the lake and his childhood. This Christian was the polar opposite of the Goth who sat in the corner and rolled his eyes at me. As I thought more about it, I realized I was a different person too. The old Starr barely noticed the amazing person who sat in Contemporary Issues with her. The new Starr couldn’t help but notice him but didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
“Am I boring you?” he asked, bringing me back to reality.
“No, I was just thinking.”
“Care to share?”
I decided to be direct. I felt more in control that way. “I was just thinking about how different you are now compared to the boy who rolled his eyes at me in class.”
He tilted his head to the side again. “Is that a good thing?”
I could only nod my head. It was a very good thing.