Sophie felt her heart speed up but she wasn’t sure as to why. She couldn’t find the words, even though there was only one. Instead, she shook her head.
“Would you like to come back to Washington with me? Experience a real Christmas with snow and cold and a real Christmas tree?”
Sophie smiled. Really, really smiled. She threw her arm around Will—an awkward side-hug while lying down—as she said, “I’d love that. Yes, yes. If you’re sure.”
Will chuckled, tightening his grip onto her frame. Sophie was instantly warm. “I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t,” he assured her.
Looking back, Sophie was glad she had come to the Academy for Peculiars. It had only been just over two months but her entire life had changed. She had friends, a boyfriend she really liked, professors she respected and admired. She was getting an education she didn’t have to pay for. There was a roof over her head, a meal whenever she got hungry, and medical services should she ever need them. More than that, she had a home. She felt as though she actually belonged somewhere. If she ran away, there would be people who would be upset—and knowing Will, he’d use that nose of his to track her down, throw her over his shoulder, and haul her back himself. She’d be missed. She was wanted. She had never experienced that before. And she wasn’t going to allow anybody to take that away from her, not even a peculiar whose eyes, to this day, still haunted her dreams.
Acknowledgments
This book was a labor of love and a dream come true to write. In all honesty, I had no dream of publication as I wrote it; I just had a story in me I needed to write.
First and foremost, I need to thank my family. My mom and my brother for how supportive they’ve always been. My dad and step-mom for the encouragement.
Everyone on Fictionpress who read this while it was (somewhat) published there, or for anyone on the website who has read, reviewed or favorite my stories. Thank you for everything. I would not be here without you.
Melanie, thank you so much for the time and effort you put into editing this. I know how time-consuming it can be, and I appreciate your kind words and attention to detail.
Desi, my cover designer and friend. I’m so lucky you’re the one doing my covers. It’s like you live in my brain and make my visuals five million times better. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
To my husband Frank, for always believing in me. To Josh and Jacob.
Finally, to Kylee, for being the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Did You Like Stranger?
As an author, the best thing a reader can do is leave an honest review. I love gathering feedback because it shows me you care and it helps me be a better writer. If you have the time, I’d greatly appreciate any feedback you can give me. Thank you!
I
Finder
Stranger Series Book 2
1
Sophie Harper glanced around the room she shared with her two roommates, her sapphire eyes opened wide in disbelief. It had never looked this clean before. A small smile touched her lips as she went over to the nightstand adjacent to her four-poster bed and took a picture of the odd sight. It was one she definitely had to remember, so she could show Jane and Elle that one time their room wasn’t a pile of clothes and unusable homework assignments. Even Jane’s bin of trash was empty; she must have thrown the trash away before she and her grandfather left for the hockey game.
The last day of classes was yesterday, and everyone was packing up in order to visit their family over the winter holidays. Even Sophie, who didn’t have a family of her own—at least, not one she knew of—had plans. A blush littered her cheeks just thinking about it. Will had invited her to spend Christmas with him in his cabin in Washington State. Her heart skipped a beat just thinking about it.
Although … Although, with that rush of excitement came a sucker punch in the gut of guilt. She shouldn’t be this happy about going away with a man—her trainer, in fact, who was technically a teacher at the Academy for Peculiars, which probably made it even worse—when she had a boyfriend. Not just any boyfriend, but the star forward on the Ignis soccer team. The guy every girl wanted to be with. He was hot and sweet and kind of smart and …
… and just not Sophie’s type.
Well, he was everyone’s type. Jason was all-American, warm and friendly. There was a reason why he was popular, and it wasn’t because he had money—though he did—or dated lots of girls or was exclusive. He was welcoming and made everyone feel special, like in that moment while talking to Jason, they mattered. And the crazy thing about it was he didn’t have to try. It was natural.
As a boyfriend, he was perfect. He was always on time and never made Sophie wait. He always said the right thing and knew exactly what to say at exactly the right time. He held her hand and respected her space and was one hell of a kisser, especially when he whispered one across her lips. It always took her breath away. And somehow, someway, he wanted to be with her. Out of all the prettier, smarter, wealthier girls that went to AckPec, he wanted to be with her. She should have felt lifted, lucky, and appreciative. But all she felt was guilt.
Because she didn’t love him the way he seemed to love … like? Care for her? She wasn’t sure what the appropriate words were, but she knew that her feelings didn’t match up to his, and she had no idea what to do about it. He was the right one, the best guy she would ever get. The guy she should be with.
Yet the feelings wouldn’t come, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force them. Not when there was someone else.
Will was older, gruffer, and a dick. He had no problem pointing out everything Sophie did wrong when they had their private training sessions. He was hard on her, direct, and didn’t baby her even if the situation called for it. He pushed her to her breaking point, and even then, pushed her further. She thought she would break, but somehow, she just grew stronger and stronger. Jason accepted her for exactly who she was, but Will made her be a better person. And she found that as frustrating and annoying as Will was, she was drawn to him. She liked who she was when she was with him.
Will was also attractive. Maybe not in the obvious, easy way that Jason possessed, but in his own rough-around-the-edges way. He favored wife beaters, and it would have looked silly on him if he didn’t have muscles as big as water balloons and shoulders as broad as bridges to pull it off. He wore jeans that fit him perfectly, and Sophie couldn’t help but stare at his butt whenever he wore them. She also had a soft spot whenever he wore sweatpants, but those days were few and far between, which was disappointing because his butt looked even better in those, and that was saying something. He also wore this ridiculous belt buckle that drew eyes down to his crotch; the buckle itself happened to say cocky, which just added to how silly it was. Finally, he wore motorcycle boots and a matching leather jacket that looked as though they came straight out of the nineteen fifties—which they might have, since peculiars were known to live for centuries upon centuries.
Sophie shook her head and turned back to look at the lone suitcase packed and ready to go on her bed. It probably didn’t help that she was choosing to spend Christmas with Will alone over staying at the school. But Jason was going home to visit his family, and it wasn’t as though he had extended an invitation to her. Not that she expected it since their relationship was rather new. However, it definitely didn’t help her conflicting feelings. She hoped this might help her out, get something more definitive out of her time alone with Will, see if she really cared for him and that it wasn’t some infatuation all teenage girls got on a teacher or mentor.
“Hey.”
Sophie was so wrapped up in her thoughts she hadn’t heard Jane come into the room. “Hey!” she said with a smile, throwing her arms around Jane’s frame. “I thought you had already left for the ferry.”
“Trust me, I wish I was on it,” Jane said with a roll of her eyes as she released Sophie and headed for the closet, “but Depogare insists that he come with me and my grandfather in order to offer us protec
tion.” She shook her head, her blonde hair breaking free of the ponytail she had thrown it up in. “Which totally sucks because getting from Catalina Island to Newport Beach takes an hour and then it’ll probably take another hour to get up to Anaheim, even in the carpool lane just because traffic on both the 55 and the 5 is terrible.”
Sophie chuckled. “So when do you leave?” she asked.
“In a half hour,” Jane answered, and Sophie could detect the misery in Jane’s tone. “What makes it suck even more is that there’s a good chance I’ll miss warm-ups which is the best part.” She emerged from the closet in an Anaheim Ducks jersey, made specifically for women. It was black with an orange designed on the side with the team name scrawled in white across the front. On the back, there was a number 10 underneath the name Perry. When Jane noticed Sophie staring, she explained, “He’s my favorite player. Just a smidge ahead of Getzlaf. But I love Getzlaf, too.” She shook her head. “It’s like choosing between children, I tell ya.”
Sophie laughed again, appreciating the fact that Jane had this uncanny ability to make her forget that something was wrong, at least for the moment. But Jane was also one of the smartest people Sophie knew, and it wasn’t long before her forest green eyes picked up on something.
“Hey,” she murmured, “what’s wrong? Are you having doubts about heading off to Will’s cabin?”
“It’s not doubts,” Sophie replied, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. She felt like all of her issues regarding that single subject matter weighed heavily on her shoulders, and if she didn’t sit down, she would be crushed underneath the weight of it all. “I just don’t know what to think or feel.”
“You’re feeling conflicted?” Jane guessed, tilting her head to the side. “Like, you’re excited at the prospect of spending alone time with Will and trying to figure out how you feel about him, but you’re also dating Jason, so you feel guilty about your excitement, right?”
“Um, yeah, exactly.” Sophie gave her a look before furrowing her brow. “You didn’t read my mind, did you?”
Now it was Jane who laughed. “I don’t have to read your mind to figure that out, Soph. Your face is clear as day.” She went over to her desk to pick up her purse. “Do you want some advice?”
“Sure. Lord knows I need it.”
“Relax.” Jane gave her a look. “Just relax. Do exactly what you intended to do with Will. Figure out how you feel about him. You’re almost eighteen, Sophie. Normally, we don’t marry the first guy we date or kiss or even fall in love with. Jason is a great guy, but you’re doing a disservice to yourself by staying with someone you don’t care about in a romantic sense. And honestly? You’re doing Jason a disservice by leading him on. He could be with practically any girl at his school and he likes you, which is great because you’re an amazing girl. But don’t hold him back if you’re sure your feelings for him will never develop the way his did for you.”
Sophie smiled. “That certainly sounds like personal experience,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, well it was. Except it took me nine months of waiting around for some kind of commitment from him before I realized it wasn’t going to happen, and before he actually told me it wasn’t going to happen. I learned a lot, but I also felt it was a waste of my time. And I don’t want you to waste your time just like I don’t want you to waste his. No one deserves that.”
Before Sophie could respond, someone knocked on the door.
“I’ll get it,” Jane said. When she opened it, Jason popped his head in and smiled when he saw Sophie.
“Mind if I come in?” he asked. “I know it’s against the rules and all, but I wanted to say good-bye to you before you left.”
“I was just leaving anyway,” Jane said, and waved. “Have fun, Soph! Be safe.” She gave Sophie a look that indicated there was more than one way to interpret that statement before disappearing out the door.
Jason nodded at Jane politely before heading inside. Despite the winter chill in the air that currently occupied the island, Jason was wearing jeans and a muscle shirt. He didn’t have the same arms Will had, but that didn’t mean he was lacking in any way. Jason could probably hold his own in that department, especially since Will was older and had more time to work on them. His dusty blond hair was as messy as ever, and he had a boyish smile on his face that came off as shy and approachable.
“Hey,” he murmured, shutting the door behind him. “I know I’m not allowed to be here, what with the rules, but I had to get you alone one last time before you took off.”
Without warning, he came over and cupped Sophie’s cheek with his palm, pulling her into a warm kiss. No matter how she felt about Will, Jason’s kisses always left her in puddles. She wondered if that might change if she ever kissed Will, but for now, she would enjoy the kisses while she had them.
When they broke apart, he kept his forehead on hers so he could look deep into her sapphire eyes. Sophie couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the brown color. There were even flecks of gold in the irises.
“Granted,” he said in a whisper, “I think it’s a little weird you’re going off to spend Christmas with a professor, but I trust you. I’ll give you your gift when I get back from my family’s place. You take care of yourself, okay? No matter what, you’re my girl.”
Sophie smiled. She didn’t know the right words to say; that was Jane’s talent. Instead, she forced a smile and kissed Jason once again. When he left, she slid down the door, her back resting against it. Seeing Jason didn’t help anything, didn’t help her feelings. He set off a bomb in her heart, and it just exploded. If anything, he made everything worse.
2
“I cannot believe you’re coming,” Jane said once she was safely tucked away in Professor Depogare’s office. “Do you know anything about hockey? Do you even like hockey?”
Depogare sat at his desk, probably getting a head start on failing his students’ essays stacked neatly on the surface. He looked at her through his dark, copper-colored hair that fell in his face with abandon, and there was a ghost of a grin on his chiseled face. Jane pointedly looked away from it; whenever Depogare did anything resembling a smile, which was a rare feat unto itself, it did weird things to her insides, and she didn’t want to feel that way tonight.
“Just because I have a Southern accent doesn’t mean I deny my roots,” he told her. “I come from a long line of Russian athletes. I, myself, have played a variety of sports.”
Jane pushed her brows up and pressed her lips together, giving him a look that bordered on skepticism.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” she asked, staring at his typical all-black suit. “You know we’re going to a hockey game, right? Not a funeral? You are literally going to be the only person in the Honda Center in a suit besides the players who have to sit out as scratches or for health reasons.”
“Are you saying someone uneducated on the team might assume I played for the team?” he asked.
He was teasing her. Depogare was actually teasing her. It was weird and odd and different, yet Jane found, deep down, that she liked it. She could understand why someone might assume he played for the team. He was tall and broad, with lean muscle on his body. However, she couldn’t be absolutely certain on that last part, only because he always wore those suits, and they weren’t tight enough to decipher what his body actually looked like. The sleeves, as usual, were rolled up to his elbows, revealing a slew of tattoos that had Russian origins and just added to his air of mystery.
Depogare wasn’t a typically good looking guy. He wasn’t even handsome in a rough-around-the-edges way. But something about him reeked of sensuality and it added to his desirability. Maybe he wasn’t classically good looking, but he was attractive in his own way. His copper hair was slicked back from his face, which just emphasized his big, pointed nose. It was a rather noticeable imperfection, but the more Jane spent time with him, the more she felt drawn to him. Without his nose, he wouldn’t be the same person. His eyes were the best part about him,
hands down. They were a midnight blue color that had the power to penetrate steel. It was probably why he was so good at reading minds, because his victim couldn’t move underneath his stare.
“My grandfather’s taking us to the game,” Jane forced herself to say. She needed to continue the conversation or else the tension between them would be palpable. He would deny it, of course, and he would be good at denying it, but she, on the other hand, had a terrible poker face. She couldn’t hide her feelings if she tried, which was why she avoided looking at him. She wasn’t sure how she felt and wanted the time to sort through her feelings herself. “He’s not too pleased there’s a kink in our plans. We rarely get to see each other, you know.”
“The two of you are close, yes?” Depogare asked as he started scrawling on the first essay on his desk.
“The closest,” she affirmed. “I’m not sure how he’s going to take a big, tall Russian messing up our plans.”
“It’s for your own protection.” He didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest by her annoyance. In fact, he was quite good at tuning her out when he needed to be.
“If you recall, I can protect myself.”
“If I recall, you did protect yourself before fainting, leaving you vulnerable for the taking.” He glanced up at her and made sure to lock eyes with her. “At least with me, I can guarantee your safety. I’m certain your grandfather would appreciate that.”
Jane paused for a moment, but she didn’t have a way to respond to that. Instead, she said, “Well, my parents are taking us out to a late dinner and they say it’s a family matter. That’s a nice way of saying you can’t sit at our table.”
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