Sindra stood, smoothed her dress, and straightened herself majestically before me. There was a hint of something in her eyes—maybe a touch of guilt or sadness—but she quickly schooled her features. “You’re welcome, Cinderella,” she said and took off after Henry.
I tripped over the tiniest rock and had to slow to a walking pace; we were only an hour from the lake, but the anklet was still slowing me down. I had been wearing it for weeks, but I couldn’t get over everything it stood for. Sadness weighed heavily on my heart. On top of that, my daydreams had become increasingly distracting. Oliver asked what was wrong, and I blamed my mood on Henry. I couldn’t tell him the whole truth. I couldn’t tell him that along with the extreme anger and hurt I harbored toward my father, I was also constantly thinking of the stranger I’d met in the garden on my birthday. Every time I closed my eyes, even just to blink, I would find myself gazing into his blue eyes…
A slap across the face from a rogue willow branch brought me back to the present—the bright morning, cool breeze, tired legs, and Oliver’s voice dripping with concern.
“Whoa, Kaya. Be careful! Come back to earth, darling,” he said.
Henry always called me darling—the whole evening that I’d been trying to forget became even clearer. My forehead began to sting, and not just from the willow branch.
“Is there something else on your mind, girl? You’re completely in a daze this morning. Wanna talk about it?”
I stopped and looked at Oliver. His cheeks were glowing, and his white T-shirt stretching over his damp skin was an invitation to stare… he was rock-solid perfect. Why would I have anyone else on my mind when I had him?
He plucked a wild daisy from the ground and held it out to me. “A flower for your thoughts?” he said sweetly.
But his words were like a punch in the gut—it was the same thing the stranger had asked me in the garden. I felt the blood drain from my cheeks.
“Kaya, what’s wrong?”
“I’m… just a bit dizzy…” I lied.
“Sit down. You’ve been pushing yourself way too hard the last few weeks.”
I did as I was told and sat down on the trail. An ant crawled over my bare leg. I watched him scurry off while I reasoned with myself—Oliver couldn’t know what was going on in my mind. Nobody could. Carl had said security was disabled for an hour that night when I confronted him about it, and there wasn’t anything on camera when I doubled-checked the footage to make sure he was telling the truth. Besides, I did nothing wrong, I was stressing over literally nothing, and I was feeling guilty over thoughts for God’s sake. Thoughts. “I should run away,” I said aloud, but I mostly to myself.
“Huh? What are you talking about? Did that branch rattle your brains?”
“I could leave, couldn’t I?” I looked down at the tracking device on my ankle. Despite Stephan’s order to leave it alone, I had tried to get it off last night, but it wouldn’t budge. Now, a ton of makeup covered horrible bruises. “I think Henry is bluffing.”
“I doubt that,” he said.
“I want out. You, me, and Stephan—we could all run away together.”
Oliver laughed, but then he grew quiet when he realized I was serious. “Is that what you’ve been thinking about while you’ve had your head in the clouds lately?”
“Um, yes.”
“Are you still dizzy?” he asked.
I shook my head no.
“Come on then, follow me.” He stood and pulled me to my feet.
“Where are we going?”
“Well, let’s test that anklet. Let’s be certain about what we’re dealing with so we can put your curiosity to rest. But, Kaya, you know you are only safe here, right? Running away is absolutely ludicrous,” he said as we wandered off the path into the bush.
I didn’t reply. I didn’t agree.
We pushed through tall grass and skinny willow trees, carefully parting branches until we came upon an enchanting little clearing. Purple clover and tall wild grass bloomed in small patches, and sunlight shone through breaks in the trees. It seemed too perfect to be real. Bees buzzed and hummed, and one landed on my arm, its pretty yellow-and-black body so fuzzy I had to resist petting it. After a minute, it flew off, soaring up and over Oliver’s head. “This is amazing,” I said in awe.
Oliver marched out into the middle of the open space, sending butterflies scrambling up and out of the grass. “This should be about the edge of the property. I can hear the highway, and… so far so good,” he said, referring to the fact that we were still alone and Lowen Security hadn’t swarmed down upon us. There weren’t even any flashes of light in the trees—the usual signal we got from them to let us know they were near—and they were always near. This was very odd.
“What about them?” I asked.
“None here as far as I can tell,” Oliver said, looking around curiously. He was about to say something else, but he quickly changed his mind when more blue-and-white wings drifted up out of the clover. A butterfly landed on his hand. He gave it a gentle shake, but it held on.
“I guess it likes you,” I laughed.
“And how about you, Kaya Lowen… do you like me, too?” he asked playfully.
“You know it.”
His eyes narrowed with intensity. “It has been excruciating not being able to touch you,” he said, and then in three eager steps, he was before me, pulling my body to his. His lips brushed my cheek, and then he moved slowly to my mouth—but I didn’t want to kiss him back. I suddenly felt apprehensive and had to force myself to respond. Something had changed, and being this close to Oliver didn’t feel like it did before. I had been so desperate to have him just weeks ago, and now… not at all. I made my lips move in synch with his anyway, tasting the salt on his skin as his hands moved up the back of my shirt. I had to remind myself that this was okay—this was Oliver, the same man who saved my life, sat by my bed, and looked after me when I was sick—but the stranger in the garden was messing with my head. For some twisted reason, I felt like I was cheating… on him. Everything was messed up.
“I love you, Kaya,” Oliver said, letting go to look into my eyes. Then he got down on his knees before me. “I have been waiting a long time for this moment, and thought about it over and over in my head, praying for the opportunity to make it happen. This might be too soon, but…” he held his breath and stared up at me, brown eyes filling with tears, “I can’t live without you. You’re everything to me.”
My heart was pounding like a jackhammer. He had a tiny box in his hand, and he slowly opened the lid to reveal a shiny gold band covered in pink diamonds. I was speechless. Was he really doing this? Was he proposing?
“I want to protect you, make you happy, and I will love you always and forever.” He reached for my hand. He was nervous, and I didn’t dare move or speak. I just stared at him in disbelief as his voice shook. “Kaya, will you marry me?” he asked.
I fell to my knees before him because they wouldn’t hold me up anymore. Marry him? Marry Oliver? I’d never entertained even the slightest notion of that happening. I cared about him, and couldn’t imagine my life without him, but marriage?
I looked at his face and into those blue eyes, pulse fluttering as I reached out to brush away a lock of golden hair that had fallen across the scar over his cheek. A hot feeling bubbled in my chest, then a rush of cold travelled up my spine; I realized I was staring into the face of the stranger, again.
I had to end this ridiculous infatuation, and I knew exactly how to do it. “Yes,” I said, smiling at Oliver.
“Yes?” he said, seeming shocked and relieved at the same time.
“Yes. I will marry you,” I said, but my voice sounded distant and detached to my ears.
The most gorgeous smile came across his face. “Kaya, my girl, I am the luckiest man on earth,” he said as he guided the ring onto my finger.
Then his hands were behind my head, winding into my hair, and he kissed me, softly at first, then with more urgency and passion than
ever before. I knew there would be no stopping this time. Cars whooshed by on the highway, the meadow hummed with life, and a jet flew over our heads. Oliver’s hot breath moved down my neck. His hands were under my shirt, undoing my bra, fingers slipping underneath the fabric and over my bare skin. His breath sped up, and I could feel the heat of him envelope me. I wanted to say no, I wanted to tell him to stop, but my body defied me. My hands were caressing him back, and I heard a soft moan come from my own throat when his mouth found my breast. I silently yelled no when he pushed me down onto the soft clover and eased himself into me. I let him have what he wanted and watched as his eyes fluttered in ecstasy. It was heaven. It was hell. It was my first time.
And I desperately wished it had been with the stranger in the garden.
The afterglow didn’t last long.
Guns held by the familiar faces of Lowen Security were pointed at Oliver’s forehead, and our beautiful clover patch almost became an execution ground. I was taken back to my room, crying because I’d just gotten engaged, the tracker worked, and Daddy Dearest wasn’t bluffing.
I wasn’t running away any time soon.
Getting Oliver to agree to let me run The Death Race was more of a battle than the race itself was going to be. He was completely beside himself with rage. It was as if the ring on my finger gave him control over my life, and my defiance of his wishes was unthinkable. Stephan played it cool. Part of him was happy to see me following my dreams while the other part was still slightly angry for getting engaged to my bodyguard without passing it by him first. Davis, on the other hand, was ecstatic. About absolutely everything.
So there we were, race day, and I was celebrating three things before my feet even touched the starting line. First: just getting here—I kept pinching myself to make sure it was really happening. Second: getting Oliver to agree to it. After much debate, he decided to run with me—really though, was there ever the possibility he’d let me go alone? Nope. And third: I had made it through the first night in three months without having any dreams of the stranger—it had taken eighty-two days of working hard to replace the ache for him with love for Oliver instead. Now, as I stretched and warmed up for the adventure of a lifetime, I could finally let the man in the garden with the blues eyes go.
As we gathered at the entrance to Sulphur Mountain, I counted my lucky stars that the weather was perfect, cloudless, and with barely a breeze. It was so beautiful this time of year, too—the vibrant colors of fall painted the landscape in reds and oranges among pines still thick with green. I recognized a few of them right away, disguised as runners, and felt slightly deflated for a moment—they were everywhere, watching me and waiting for me to fail so they could report back to Henry. I had to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Remember to try and avoid eye contact with them,” Stephan reminded me.
He looked so adorable in his ‘Go Katy’ shirt, playing the role of adoring father, which wasn’t a very long stretch. He’d put his ponytail up under a ball cap—something he normally wouldn’t be caught dead in—and had trimmed his beard.
Davis was next to him stretching, happy and excited. Gone was the smoker’s cough and bit of jelly around his middle. The daily workouts to prepare for the race had turned him into a new man. A Rush concert tee with the sleeves cut off was stretched across his chest, and every pocket of his favorite khaki shorts was stuffed with useless items. If you needed dental floss or a pair of pliers, he had it. Tape? Spare batteries? All there. It had been an all-out war to convince him that he couldn’t run in jeans and motorcycle boots, and the sneakers he was proudly displaying were a blinding flash of green and neon orange.
“Wow, those shoes!” I exclaimed, pointing at his feet as the gleam made my eyes water.
“Yep. These babies are all the rage right now,” he winked, and then he gave me the once over. “Geez, you should have let me help you shop, though, Kaya, I don’t think funeral chic is in this month.”
I grinned. I had purposely dressed very plainly. Black tank top, black yoga pants, black ball cap with as much hair stuffed up underneath without having a cone head, and a wind breaker with just a few white strips of piping along the seams.
Stephan laughed. “Looking plain is better than looking like a half-eaten popsicle. What’s up with the kiddie shoes, Davis? Henry doesn’t pay you enough to buy grown men’s footwear?” he teased.
“Yeah, yeah. Hey Stephan, do you even know who the Boston Bruins are, or did you just pick a random cap to wear?”
Stephan smoothed his manicured beard. “Yeah of course. They are a sports team, um, baseball? No… hockey!”
“Stealing from Oliver’s closet again, eh?”
While they giggled at each other, Oliver remained straight-faced, glancing around as if a pack of wolves were going to pounce upon us any minute. Davis and Stephan both rolled their eyes.
“Anyway, here are some antacids for your stomach,” Stephan said, handing me a little tube of chalky pills.
Oliver zeroed in on me. “What’s wrong? Are you sick again?” he asked anxiously.
“No, it’s just heartburn, relax.” I didn’t dare tell him that my throat had been on fire since getting over the flu and I still had a hard time keeping food down, because I wasn’t worried. The family doctor did some tests and assured me that all would go back to normal once I quit training so hard.
Brightly colored huts littered the clearing, and people as colorful as the flags and ribbons decorating the beverage tables had lined up to sign in. The lemon-flavored medicine foamed in my mouth while we waited for our turn at the check-in booth. Oliver and Davis breezed through easily enough, but of course, I got held up waiting for an acne-faced boy to find my name on a clipboard. I started feeling anxious as the line grew behind me.
“Adams… Katy Adams…” the boy said as he scanned through dozens of pages, his tight, silver necklace looking like it might choke him. I bit my tongue to stop myself from explaining the concept of ‘alphabetical order’. “Katy… I don’t see you on here, hmm, oh wait! Yep, yesiree, there you are,” he said excitedly, and then he looked up and stared hard at my face. “Oh, damn. Sorry miss, uh Katy, just one sec… I’ll be right back, I gotta take this call,” he said, and spun around, disappearing into the back of the shack.
I never heard his phone ring. I could hear the feet of the participants impatiently rustle behind me until the boy returned with a flushed look about him. “Yeah, sorry about that. My girlfriend is really sick right now, and the doctor was just giving me an update. Anyway… okay… uh, Katy Adams, right?”
“Yep, still me,” I said irritably, “hope your brother is all right, are you the eldest?”
He checked off something on his clipboard and reached under the table for my racer package. “Nope younger, and yeah… thanks. He’s got appendicitis or something. Anyway, you are number 121. Good luck.”
I wondered if Oliver had picked up on the boy’s lie, but his stern expression hadn’t changed. If I mentioned something seemed out of the ordinary, Oliver would think there was some sort of conspiracy, and I would be delivered home faster than I could blink.
I happily put the racer’s bib on over my tank top and number 121 shone in white, reflective numbers. I couldn’t conceal my elated grin as a few beads of sweat trickled down my back. I pulled warm, clean mountain air into my lungs and closed my eyes for a minute. This was really happening. I was here. And it was already amazing.
The first group of racers was already off and running, and in ten minutes, it would be our turn to start. As we gathered at the starting line, I noticed a very pretty blonde staring at Oliver. She wasn’t just checking him out; she was blatantly and very obviously trying to get his attention, flipping her honey-colored hair and flashing her blinding-white smile. Tiny blue shorts barely covered her butt, and I couldn’t help but notice that she was braless—neither could Davis. I felt a tinge of jealousy, even though Oliver was too busy taking in the entire world around him to notice her.
&
nbsp; “May I have everyone’s attention please!” said a deep and very loud voice. A white-haired man dressed in a black cloak was standing ominously at a podium. He held a microphone as one might clutch a dagger and addressed the racers with a huge voice that echoed through the valley. “Racers remember, do not lose your coin! Our adventure coincides with the dark Greek myth of Charon, the Ferryman of the Dead, and the very special coin possessed by each team and solo racer must not be lost. Only when you present your coin to the Ferryman will you be provided safe passage across Hell’s Gate. Your journey will be fraught with hardship and suffering, and only the strongest among you will cross the finish line. Good Luck!”
A wild shiver ran up my spine.
“You guys got yer coins?” Davis asked, bursting with energy.
We double-checked our pockets for the fifth time, and moved up, next in line to go. The blonde ahead of us kept looking back, and I couldn’t tell if Oliver noticed her or not. My stomach felt as though it jumped.
“Kaya, are you nervous?” Oliver asked, mistaking my jealousy for something else.
“Oh, no. Not at all.”
He reached for my hand and let his fingers glide over the engagement ring. “Because if you want, you can still change your mind. You don’t have to do this.”
I had no reply. Thankfully, Davis spoke up for me. “She’s gonna rock this, you just watch, Ollie,” he said, lifting his tattooed arm of pirate ships and naked women to pat Oliver on the shoulder. “And good luck to you, buddy. I’ll go slowly so you can keep up,” he winked.
“Yeah, good luck to you too,” Oliver said grumpily, and then a grin slowly spread over his face. “I’m gonna kick both your asses.”
Then the announcer started counting down, and we all took deep breaths.
Our feet sounded like distant claps of thunder and sent clouds of dust into the air. Onlookers cheered, Stephan blew kisses, and they followed closely.
The first leg of the race was over a hard-packed, thirteen-kilometer trail. A mild climb snaked up and into the mountain through massive pines on rocky terrain that shone like dark jewels. We caught glimpses of Tammy Lake and its turquoise, shimmering water while we skirted the edge, the three of us keeping pace with each other. Davis excited, me in adrenaline-fueled bliss, and Oliver nervous and apprehensive.
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