The Missing

by Shiloh Walker

  It was probably the most perfect night she could ever remember having. Or at least the most perfect night in years. They went into town, and they rode go-carts. They played in the arcade. They ate pizza and ice cream. And when he took her home, well past dark, he walked her to the door, and before he left her on the porch, he dipped his head to kiss her.

  Light and fast, just a butterfly touch. As he straightened up, Taige felt blood rush to her cheeks. She would have been more embarrassed, except she realized he was blushing a little, too.

  He walked off, and Taige turned around with a happy sigh. That lingering happy feeling stayed with her even as she opened the door and walked inside to hear one of her uncle’s recorded sermons booming from the living room. It stayed with her even as she showered and well into the night.

  TWO

  Summer 1994

  “IT happened again, didn’t it?”

  Taige stiffened involuntarily, only to relax when Cullen reached up, his hands resting on her shoulders as his thumbs dug into the knotted muscles of her neck. “What happened?” she said, hoping she could play dumb. She hated for him to know about her issues. She hated for him to know that she was such a damn freak.

  “Don’t give me that.” His hands tightened just a little, and she suspected he would have liked to shake her. He didn’t, though. Cullen never touched her like that. “I hate it when you lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying,” Taige hedged.

  “The hell you aren’t. You know what I’m talking about. You had another one of those weird dreams.”

  Cullen had found out about her dreams last summer. He’d been there with her late one night out on the beach when she fell asleep. She’d woken up choking for air. It had come on her hard and fast, and she had no time to worry about Cullen as she ran for the pool. It was past midnight, and the pools were closed, but it hadn’t kept the curious five-year-old from climbing over the gate so he could go swimming. His parents hadn’t even heard him leave, and that late, nobody had seen the little boy walking down the hallway all by himself.

  She hadn’t been able to hide it from Cullen any longer when the paper ran the story the next day on the front page, along with a headline, “Local Psychic Saves Another Child.” It had listed several of the other times when she had either helped save some kid from drowning or found them when they wandered off and got lost. Worse, it had listed some of the more grisly things that Taige would rather nobody know. The times when she found the bodies of murder victims, three different times, three people she hadn’t been able to help. Those were the ones that really made her feel like a useless freak.

  After he found out, Taige had been ready for him to either laugh at her or just walk away, although they’d spent most of that summer together. But he hadn’t walked off. He hadn’t laughed. And when he showed up at her house the next day, he’d walked in when Leon was having one of his outbursts, yelling at Taige and calling her devil spawn. Cullen had punched Leon, knocking the older man into the wall and then grabbing him and slamming him back so hard that the back of Leon’s head knocked a hole in the drywall. “I hear you talking to her like that again, and I’ll make you damn sorry,” Cullen had shouted while Taige bodily separated them.

  “She’s seduced you. The devil’s harlot. You’ll burn in hell with her if you don’t repent! God will see to it—He will pass His judgment over you, and you will burn in hell.”

  Cullen had sneered at Leon and said, “If God is going to send anybody straight to hell, it’s going to be you.”

  Then he had taken Taige’s hand and led her out of the house, to his car, but instead of climbing inside, he had leaned against it and pulled her against him.

  Taige had already had a bad feeling that she loved him, but after that night, she knew it was true. She’d fallen in love with some rich white boy from Atlanta—and she couldn’t have been happier about it.

  “You in there?” he murmured, leaning forward to kiss her shoulder. Exhausted, she’d ended up falling asleep instead of fishing with Cullen and his dad. The sun’s rays were white hot, but the touch of his mouth on her made her burn even more.

  “Hmmm.” She lowered her head briefly, pressing her face against his neck. His arm came up and curved around her shoulder, and Taige sighed, relaxing into the hard length of his body.

  “You want to tell me about it?” he asked softly.

  She slid his dad a nervous look, but the older man was standing out hip-deep in the waves, too far to hear them or really even see them. Her voice was soft, almost hesitant when she finally replied, “There’s not much to tell. I didn’t see much. Just a girl’s face. She’s lost. Or she will be.” It would be so much easier to deal with her bizarre ability if it operated with any kind of sense. Sometimes she saw what had already happened. Sometimes things as they happened, and then sometimes, days, months, or weeks before it happened. Not always in time to change things and not always in time to help.

  “Is she okay?” Cullen’s hand was warm on her neck, and he rubbed the tight muscles there. He did that a lot, sometimes without even realizing that he did it, Taige thought. He liked to touch her, and it wasn’t always just because he was trying to cop a feel. Although Taige had no problems when he was doing that, none at all. Unlike the guys who had tried to get her in a similar situation, she liked it when Cullen touched her. She liked it a lot. His touch did something strange to her deep inside. Logically, she knew what it was. He turned her on, but that in and of itself was odd for her. He was the only guy who could touch her and not make her want to cringe away. He was—restful. As lame as that sounded, it was the only way she could describe it. Even when he was kissing her, touching her through her clothes, or when she was touching him, even when she was so damned hot from all those touches that she couldn’t stand it, it was restful.

  It never came with the bad vibes or whatever worries and thoughts he had going on inside. When he touched her, she didn’t have to worry she was going to pick up some random emotion or a memory flash, and that let her relax and just enjoy it. She leaned into his hands and tried to pull something else out of that short blip of a dream. Something besides the girl’s face, but there was nothing. “I don’t know, Cullen.”

  “Isn’t it usually clearer than this?”

  She gave him a wry glance. “Not always. Doesn’t come with an owner’s manual or a remote where I can rewind and watch through it again.” She pulled away from him, hoping that maybe if she wasn’t touching him, her brain might function a little better.

  He was quiet for a minute. He slid a hand down her arm and linked her fingers with his. “Are you going to be able to help?”

  Taige shook her head. “I don’t know. If I’m supposed to help . . .” Her voice trailed off. It was hard to explain, and Cullen was the first person she’d ever attempted to explain it to. The first person she’d ever cared enough about to try to explain it so he could understand. But she didn’t really have the words to explain that she would just know. She’d be walking to the restaurant to help Rose and Dante, or she’d be swimming or riding her bike along Fort Morgan Highway, and she would just know. She would feel it. Whether she would be in time, that part would have to play itself out. “I’ll just know. It’s almost like there is some kind of magnet, and it will pull me in.”

  Cullen pulled her up against him, and she cuddled in close. His calm, simple acceptance was nothing short of amazing, and Taige didn’t know if she’d ever get used to it. She didn’t know if it would last or not, either. She worried about it sometimes, late at night when she was thinking about him or over the past winter while he was back in Georgia. They wrote, and he called her a lot, always over at Rose’s or at the restaurant. Never at home. Taige had all but moved in with Rose as it was, spending only one or two nights a week in the small, depressing bedroom in the house where her uncle lived. Rose had offered her Dante’s room after he had moved in with a girlfriend, and Taige knew as soon as she turned eighteen, she would do it.

  Not yet
, though. Not until her uncle had no more legal hold over her. He was mean enough to try to make Rose’s life a living hell just to hurt Taige. Once she was eighteen, the bastard couldn’t do anything. Another couple months. She still had her senior year to get through in high school, but she could do that just as well living with Rose.

  “You thought any more about college?”

  “Nothing to think about,” she said softly. She wasn’t going. She didn’t have the money, and although she knew she could get a grant, maybe even a scholarship or two, she wasn’t cut out for college.

  “You just going to keep working at the restaurant the rest of your life?” He shifted around, facing her.

  She met his gaze levelly. Taige knew he didn’t get it. Knew he didn’t understand. Working at the little restaurant might not be the best-paying job, and it wasn’t anything special, but she didn’t need special. She didn’t need glamorous, and she didn’t give a damn about pulling in a six-figure income.

  What she wanted was quiet and solitude. Here, at home, she got that, to an extent, anyway. People here knew her. Some of the locals still treated her like some sort of freak show, but she couldn’t imagine going to someplace where nobody knew her. She’d really look like the bearded lady then. Or a charlatan.

  Taige could handle people not believing in what she could do, but too often that interfered with doing it, and she didn’t want to risk that.

  “The restaurant’s all I need, Cullen.”

  He reached up and fisted a hand in her hair. “Maybe, but you deserve more.” He leaned in, and she held still as he kissed her, soft and slow. He touched her so gently, so carefully. It seemed reverent, somehow, and it never failed to melt her heart. His tongue touched her lips, and she opened to him, groaning in her throat as he tugged her closer.

  “You know, when I was a kid, that wasn’t called fishing.” Cullen jerked away as the sound of his dad’s voice intruded. Blood rushed to Taige’s face, and she covered her face with her hands. She glanced through her fingers to see Robert Morgan watching them with a stern look on his face, but his eyes were smiling. “Sorry, Dad,” Cullen said. His voice didn’t sound sorry at all, and Robert just shook his head and grinned.

  “Can’t say I blame you, but if your mama knew I was letting you two carry on like that, she’d have both our heads on a platter.” Then he winked at Taige. “And she’d feel the motherly duty of giving you a talking-to, Taige. So you two just save us all that, okay? Wait until I’m gone.”

  Summer 1996

  The sun had set and with it went the heat.

  Taige lay on the beach blanket, staring up at the stars overhead and trying not to panic. Cullen was crouched over the small campfire they had built, and she wanted to roll over onto her side so she could watch him. That man certainly looked good in the firelight, the yellow orange flames deepening his already tanned skin, casting dancing shadows all over the long, rangy muscles in his body.

  He’d been seriously cute that first summer, but now . . . saliva pooled in her mouth just looking at him. That man was definitely drool worthy. Over the past four years, his lanky body had filled out, his shoulders had broadened, and his face had gone from good-looking all-American teenaged male to pure male perfection. Without a doubt, the man was a work of human art and definitely worth staring at.

  But if she stared at him for too long, Taige might start thinking about what she was planning to do once he joined her on the beach blanket. They’d been seeing each other for nearly three years now. Only during the summers, and neither of them talked about how serious they were. Taige wasn’t really even sure if they were serious. Sometimes, especially after he left to go back home, she had to wonder how serious they could be. They were able to spend eight weeks together during the summer. A few days over Christmas break, and this past spring, Cullen had come down on his own.

  She’d almost done this then. But then Taige had a bad one. Real bad. They had been lying on the couch in his parents’ condo, and it had come on her like a heart attack, a girl’s screams ringing in her ears. She had shoved Cullen away and rolled to the floor, crouching there like some wild animal. She could hear the girl’s screaming, and she could feel the girl’s terror, and when Cullen touched her, it had terrified her.

  He had jerked her close against him and shook her gently, murmuring her name over and over until she finally saw him and not the men crowding around the girl. They hadn’t had any time. It was happening then, and they rushed out of the condo so fast that neither of them even bothered putting their shoes on. They were halfway to the car when Taige realized her shirt was hanging open, but her hands shook too badly to button it. Cullen had done it.

  He had stopped, turned around, and buttoned enough of the buttons to keep her shirt closed and then he had kissed her, soft and gentle. “Calm down. It will be okay.”

  Taige knew then. Not right that second, but later on. She knew he was it for her. Nineteen years old, and she had found the man she wanted for the rest of her life. He knew about the weird dreams, knew about how she saw things that normal people didn’t see—things that people probably weren’t supposed to see—but it didn’t freak him out.

  How that was possible, she didn’t know. The only thing that made sense was that he was the one. The one meant for her, just like she was meant for him. That was why he didn’t freak out when these things hit her, and that was why she could touch him without picking up on all those weird blips and images that happened when she usually touched people.

  That time, the attack of fear had been brought on by a couple of college boys intent on getting a piece of ass. One of them had brought a girl with him, a girl who had thought she was going to a party; she didn’t realize she was the party. The beach house had been back off the road.

  Neither Cullen nor Taige had seen the house, or the drive that was a little overgrown, but they hadn’t needed to see it. Taige had known where it was, and when she pointed to the roadside, Cullen slowed down without her having to say anything. They’d pulled up in front of the house, and they had both heard the screams. Cullen used his cell phone to call the police, and he had wasted five seconds trying to convince Taige to stay in the car.

  When he figured out she wasn’t listening, he had opened the trunk and grabbed two clubs from the golf bag. It was the first and only time Taige had ever held a golf club, and she was damn thankful she hadn’t had to use it.

  “Hey.”

  Jerked back to the present, Taige rolled her head toward him and smiled.

  “You were out in orbit again,” he teased as he stretched his body out beside her on the blanket. He dipped his head low and skimmed his lips along her shoulder.

  Taige rolled toward him and smiled. “Daydreaming.”

  He grinned. “Really? About what?”

  She covered his grinning mouth with her own and murmured, “You.”

  He rolled onto his back and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her with him so that she ended up on top of him. She shifted, planting a knee on either side of his hips and bracing her elbows on his chest so that she could grin down at him. His brilliant turquoise eyes glinted up at her. “So what am I doing in these daydreams?”

  Now or never . . .

  Taige pushed up. As she straightened up over him, she felt him between her legs. She’d touched him before, knew that his skin was strangely smooth, like silk, and under the silk, he felt hard. Right now, he was damn hard, and Taige shivered a little. It had nothing to do with the cool breeze blowing off the Gulf and everything to do with the look in his eyes as she reached behind her neck and undid the tie to her bikini.

  His eyes slowly drifted down. She felt the blush creeping up her cheeks, but she didn’t stop. She reached behind her for the tie at her back, and the swimsuit top fell off, landing on his belly. His belly was left bare by the faded Hawaiian-print shirt. Taige pushed the bikini top off and leaned forward. “It was something like this,” she murmured, and then she kissed him.

  Taige loved
kissing Cullen. Flat-out loved it. She’d gone more than half of her life avoiding the touch of most people, so it was bizarre that she now craved it. But not just from anybody. She wanted Cullen’s hands on her, loved the way he touched her, so gentle and slow, loved the way he made her feel so cherished.