The porch creaked as we walked to the steps.
“Where are we going?” I was glad I’d worn a sweater. A chilly breeze flowed in the air.
“You’ll see.”
We hopped down the stairs and walked toward the upper barn. A few stars appeared amidst the wispy clouds. The air smelled fresh, scents of grass and milkweed on the breeze.
Our feet tramped softly on the gravel. I wondered if we were going for a ride. I’d never done an evening horseback ride before, but just as we reached the big hill to the upper barn, Flint propelled me farther to the left.
“I was thinking we could go to this place I found,” he said.
Night sounds drifted in the breeze. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Um, sure. What place?”
“It’s a few miles from here.”
Good thing I wore the hiking boots. “Sure, this way?” I angled my head to the left.
I was about to start walking when Flint reached out. His hand closed over my forearm. Tingles immediately raced along my arm.
“It will probably take an hour to walk there. It would be faster if I carried you. May I?”
I had no idea what he was asking so just nodded. Before I could blink, the air rushed around me and the next thing I knew, I was astride his back, piggyback style.
“Whoa,” I managed at the sudden movement.
“Can you hold this?” He handed me the blanket.
“Ah, okay.” I placed it between us.
“Hold on.” He wrapped my legs securely around his waist, and a second later, we were flying.
I wrapped my arms tightly around his chest. His arms pumped at his sides. In no time, we were in the forest.
I had no idea any human could move so fast. The night air flew by. Cool, fresh air burst across my face.
Surprisingly, riding on Flint’s back was smooth, even when he leaped over logs or darted around trees. His joints scissored liked well-oiled hinges, his legs strong as steel. Steady breaths rushed in and out of his lungs. The incredible speed at which he ran seemed to barely affect him.
It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before we came to an abrupt halt. The jolting stop almost pitched me over his shoulders. Luckily, he had my legs gripped tightly around him.
Carefully, Flint set me down in a large clearing.
“Where are we?” My legs wobbled for a moment.
He reached out to steady me before taking the blanket and spreading it across the tall grass. “About three miles west. Near the ranch’s perimeter.”
After the blanket was fully settled, he sat down. The fast run hadn’t fazed him. Sweat didn’t line his face. Harsh breaths didn’t raise his chest. Flint held out his hand. “Care to join me?”
I tried to nod but couldn’t breathe. How had he run that fast with me? And how could he seem so relaxed and confident when it felt as if my stomach would flip right over?
The picture he painted sitting on the blanket with his hand outstretched made my head spin. It seemed the cool, confident Flint I knew was back, as though the nervous, unsure one from the night before never existed.
“Lena?” he asked in that deep tone of his.
“Right, sorry.” The instant my hand joined his, I was lying on the ground beside him. He’d moved like lightning again, picking me up and laying me beside him, as if I weighed no more than a jar of Val’s pickled green beans.
“Wow,” I muttered. “It’s a good thing I don’t get motion sickness.”
His eyes widened. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
As my eyes adjusted to the dark sky, the silence stretched. I played with my hair again. Flint lay only inches away. I felt his gaze on me.
“Um, so . . . how was your day?” I asked.
“Good. Just the usual, mending fences, moving cattle. You?”
“Yeah, good too. Same as you really, just the usual.” I stumbled over the words and wanted to kick myself. I bet Jacinda hadn’t batted an eye on her first date with Huxley. I wished I could be more like her.
Flint was watching me with a smile on his face. Once again, the curtain draped wide open, deep emotion glinting in his irises.
“What?” I raised a hand to straighten my hair. Were snarls flying all over?
“Nothing, just you.”
“Just me, what?”
His lips tugged up more. He shook his head. “You just have this way about you. One minute you’ve got a smart comment on the tip of your tongue, but the next you’re nervous about your hair, or carrying on some silent conversation with yourself.”
I made a face. “How do you know that?”
“Your expression changes. I can only imagine what you’re thinking.”
My eyes widened. “Oh, well . . .”
“I like that about you.” He smiled—a real smile that completely transformed his face. His teeth flashed white, and he looked so unbelievably sexy that I stopped breathing. I had to look away. It was doing my head in.
“So . . .” I kept my gaze on the meadow that dipped down in front of us. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Is . . . uh . . . is this a date?”
A few seconds passed. “Do you want it to be?”
Yes. The thought came immediately. I didn’t have the guts to say it, though. But the things he’d said last night . . .
“Tell me,” he whispered.
The word flowed out of me before I could stop it. “Yes.”
He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Good, because that’s what I want too.”
His face lay only inches from mine. I hastily glanced away and thought about that first moment we met, the way we both reacted to each other. More than anything, I was certain I’d once known him. It was as if my body remembered what my mind could not.
Flint reached up and traced a finger across my cheek. The touch seared my skin, like a fire blazing a trail. “I want to know you better.”
“What do you want to know?”
His eyebrows drew together. I thought he mumbled everything. “What kind of books do you like? Have you ever seen a movie? What do you do when you’re not working? How do you like living on the ranch? Who’s your favorite in the group? Do you—”
I held up a hand. “Hold on. Do you want me to answer all of those questions?”
“Yes.”
I smiled. “Okay, one at a time then.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I feel like I’ve wasted so much time with you.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of time now.”
“Do we?” His eyes darkened in the moonlight. I was about to ask him what he meant, when he said, “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. Why wouldn’t we?”
Somehow, I managed to shake off that uneasy comment.
“So?” he said. “Are you going to answer my questions?”
I bit my lip to keep from grinning. “Okay, well, I’ve only read a few books since that first morning, but I like to read mysteries. And while I seem to know when people are referring to movie quotes, or talking about an actor, I don’t actually remember any movies from . . . before. The only movie I’ve seen in the past five months is Ghostbusters.”
Flint raised an eyebrow.
“A couple I hitchhiked with put me in the back with their kids. They had a DVD player. It was a good movie, but I think I was more amazed that I recognized some actor’s faces. I mean, how could I do that, if I couldn’t remember anything about myself?”
“It’s like that for all of us.”
That statement reminded me how unusual our circumstance was. The titles from Di’s books flashed through my mind. Nothing about us, how we met, who we were, or what we could do, was normal. And none of us knew why.
“The not knowing drives me crazy,” I said quietly. “And nobody will talk to me about it. Except Jet, and I’m not sure I want to talk to him about it.”
“I take it you’ve heard his conspiracy theories that we’re all aliens reincarnated?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
I caught his smile before his tone turned serious. “You can talk to me if you want.”
“Really? I didn’t think I could. That one time I went with you and Di to the library, I felt like a third wheel.”
He sighed. “I know. I’m sorry for how I acted. I was trying to ignore you so I wouldn’t have to address the emotions clawing up my insides.”
Emotions clawing up his insides? I ducked to hide a smile. “Do you ever think we’ll find answers?”
“I hope so. Di and I still spend most of our free time combing the internet, searching for articles throughout the country about missing people and hunting for any clue that could help identify us.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t found anything?”
Flint shook his head. “Not yet.”
“But you have an idea about our tattoos?” I still remembered what he’d said that day almost three weeks ago when Jacinda and I went shopping.
“Yes.” He picked up my wrist. His large finger traced my tattoo. I wanted to close my eyes as tingles ran up my arm, but his next word snapped me out of it. “Earth.”
I shook my head. “What? Earth? What does that mean?”
He held up his wrist. The circle with the arrow attached to it was barely visibly in the moonlight. “Mars.”
It clicked. “They’re planetary symbols.”
“So far, yes. All of them are. We’ll have to see what the new girl’s tattoo is, but I bet money it’s Mercury. It’s the only symbol left.”
“What the heck. What does that mean?”
“We don’t know.”
I bit my lip. When I thought about it, really thought about it, I wanted to scream in frustration. But it was more than that. It wasn’t only frustrating, it was frightening too. I remembered what Jet said, that day the group told me who they were. A bad omen. He was probably right. Someone, somewhere knew who we were. And someone tattooed us with these symbols, but why?
“Hey.” Flint nudged me.
I met his gaze. Worry flashed across his face.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s just . . .” I paused. “It’s scary.”
He inched closer to me. “What about your free time? What do you like to do?”
I knew he was trying to distract me. The energy that always flowed around him picked up, probably from worry. Perhaps it wasn’t only anger that made it peak.
“Um, well . . .” I shook myself mentally. He was right to change the subject. Getting wrapped up in fears about our beginnings wasn’t how I wanted to spend our first date. We had plenty of time for doom and gloom later. “When I’m not working, I’m at the barn with Dean, which is pretty much every day.”
His energy increased more. “Hmm, Dean again.”
The possessiveness of his tone sent shivers through me. However, he didn’t give me a chance to recover before he launched into more questions.
For the next hour, I told him everything he wanted to know. All of the cities I’d hitchhiked to, which guests had made the biggest impressions on me, what my favorite foods were, who I liked hanging out with most in the group, what kind of music I enjoyed, if I was a morning person versus a night person . . . the list went on.
He seemed endlessly curious and asked me more and more questions. It warmed me considerably, since I guessed when it came to other people, Flint was not a curious person.
“Okay, my turn,” I said after a while. “You won’t let me get more than a sentence or two in.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head. His hair ruffled in the breeze. I wanted to touch a strand that fell across his forehead. Instead, I eyed the small distance between us. Only inches separated us.
“What did you want to ask me?” His tone grew deeper.
I cleared my throat. “Tell me about you. You know so much about me, but I know next to nothing about you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well . . .” I chewed my lip. “How about where you woke up, wasn’t it somewhere unusual?”
“Yeah, I woke up in Yellowstone National Park.”
“What?”
He chuckled. “I’m not lying. I swear.”
“Beside a geyser or something?”
“Not quite that interesting. I’d slept in a cabin in the park, but it wasn’t a luxury condo like everyone else.”
“But you still had the money and IDs.” I thought again about our strange situation. I couldn’t help it. A chill ran through me. “I wonder who set this all up, and why.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I gazed into his dark eyes. The moonlight dipped his face into shadows. “Does everyone ever talk about it? As an entire group? About what happened to us?”
“Initially, yes, it was all we could talk about for weeks. You have to remember that some of us had been here for months before you arrived. During that time, we combed this area, searching for what drew us here. None of us could find anything. But as you may have noticed, some in the group find it too upsetting to talk about, so now it’s just Di and me pursuing answers.” He paused. “Di’s still convinced we’ll find answers eventually. Maybe here, maybe somewhere else. She sees us leaving, as you know, so as soon as the new girl arrives, we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“What do you mean, do next? Like go somewhere?”
“Exactly.”
“Where would we go?” The John Hancock building flashed through my mind.
“If Di can’t give us an exact location, we’ll decide as a group at our next meeting where to go. We always have group meetings before we pick up a new person. That started after we found Jacinda, and anytime we make a big decision in those meetings, there’s only one rule.”
“Which is?”
“We all have to be in agreement when we make decisions. If someone thinks we should go somewhere or do something, it has to be a unanimous vote. It’s either all-in or it doesn’t happen.”
I lay back down. The scratchy wool blanket tickled my ear as a stray curl flew over my face. Flint reached up and tucked it behind my ear. His finger lingered a second longer than necessary. That little intimate gesture made me lose all train of thought.
For a moment, I just lay there, studying him. Fire once again grew in my veins as I memorized his broad shoulders and muscled arms. I mentally slapped myself. “Um, so why does it have to be unanimous? Why not majority rules?”
“We decided early on that everyone needs to be okay with what’s being asked of them. Control isn’t something we have much of.”
“Oh.” I gazed at the sky so I could actually concentrate on the conversation. Watching Flint didn’t allow that. “I guess that makes sense. Those first few months I felt completely out of control. The instinct, or pull or whatever you want to call it, pushed me for so many weeks. I felt like a drug-addict, too helpless to resist it. I wanted so desperately to know what happened to me.”
Flint’s heat and that energy that always surrounded him picked up again. I kept my gaze on the sky. Stars shone brightly above. Out of habit, I reached up and slowly traced a constellation.
“What are you doing?” Flint asked, a smile in his voice.
“Nothing.” I dropped my hand.
He inched closer and reached down. He took my hand into his. My breath stopped when he lifted my arm back up. Cupping my palm, he stretched out my finger beside his and together we began tracing patterns in the sky.
“Polaris which traces into Ursa Minor,” he murmured, guiding my hand.
“And sits above Ursa Major.” I moved his arm.
He trailed our fingers along the stars. “Draco . . . Hercules . . . Serpens . . .”
“Caput . . . Ophiuchus . . .”
One by one, we named the summer constellations.
“You know them too,” I whispered when we finished.
“Sometimes at night, I’ll come out here to find the constellations. I didn’t know you enjoyed backyard astronomy.”
“I�
�ve always liked it, at least, what I can remember of it. Since I slept outside every night, before I met all of you, I spent a lot of time staring at the sky.”
His energy picked up again. He cursed and raked a hand through his hair. “I hate thinking of you out there by yourself with nothing.”
It took me a moment to calm my breathing. His energy still flowed full-force. “Um, I was fine. Really.”
“That was pure luck you were fine,” he muttered. “What if some guy found you asleep on the ground?”
“I’m not completely helpless.”
He sighed. “I know. I know. I just mean . . .” he paused and sighed again. “You’re a woman, and you’re so small. What if that guy didn’t have honorable intentions? Then what?”
I muffled a smile that he’d actually said honorable intentions. “Well, that never happened. Most nights I slept off roads and highways in the ditch. Nobody knew I was there.”
He muttered a sound. “And that’s safe?”
I shrugged.
“What about the rides you took? What if one of those guys raped you or hurt you?” he demanded.
A memory flashed through my mind, of a guy with the dark cloud who had chased me in Arizona. Flint had a point. Those thoughts had plagued me too, but I also knew I had an advantage.
“I’m a pretty good judge of character. You know, that internal radar thing?” I tapped my head. “My clouds have never been wrong. At least, not that I know of.” I briefly thought about Aaron and his ugly, black cloud. I hadn’t seen him all week. I only hoped it stayed that way.
Flint traced a finger along my cheek, and I shivered. His eyes darkened even more. “Despite your radar, I never want you doing that again.”
“I don’t intend to.”
His finger stayed on my skin, tracing a line down my neck. Heat pooled in my core. I squirmed. “Um, I still don’t know much about you.”
“What do you want to know?” he asked softly.
“Well, what about what you asked me? Favorite food? Music? Who you like hanging out with the most? Morning versus night person?” I trailed off.
He cleared his throat and dropped his hand. “I’ll eat mostly anything, but I do seem to be a meat and potato guy. My favorite music is rock, but I’ve grown used to the country Val and Pete prefer. Until now, my favorite person to hang out with was Di, and I’m a morning person. I’m usually the first awake in my cabin.”
The Complete Lost Children Series Page 15