by Dean Murray
Chapter 23
Someone was calling my name, but I really didn't want to wake up. I was still so tired, and I'd had the most wonderful dreams. They were a little foggy now, but they seemed to have involved Alec coming to my rescue, and then holding my hand as I went to sleep.
It wasn't until I finally placed the familiar voice that everything started coming back to me. I sat up with an abruptness that nearly knocked Alec off of his perch on the edge of my bed. Him still being there, looking at me with a barely restrained amusement glimmering in his eyes, calmed my racing pulse.
"You're still here."
"You sound disappointed. Do you want me to leave?" His expression had taken on the guarded blankness I still hadn't learned how to read, so I wasn't sure whether he was joking or not.
"No, not disappointed, just surprised. I figured I'd wake up and find everything had just been one amazing, crazy dream."
I'd hoped that my reassurance would make the mask drop, but if anything Alec was looking at me even more seriously.
"Would you prefer things to take that course?"
It took me several heartbeats to understand what he was getting at, long seconds in which his face grew increasingly remote. "No, how could you think that? Why would I possibly want to have you vanish when I've just now finally found out it's you who's been watching over my mom and me since we got here?"
Alec looked away for a moment, and then stood up and walked over to the window. "It would be for the best, you know. I could arrange for you both to leave the state, and never have to come back to Sanctuary again. You'd be safer."
I felt my mouth drop open as his words hit me with almost physical force. I wanted to turn and run away, but the quasi-dream from the night before was just barely vivid enough to keep me in the room.
"Is that what you want? Not what's best for me, or what you think is best for me, but what you really want?"
The silence seemed to stretch into hours before Alec finally shook his head.
"Good, because I don't want to leave. You said last night that your life felt meaningless before I came here, well, mine was even worse. The only thing that's kept me sane has been your behind-the-scenes help. I want to stay with you. I want to be with you."
Alec studied me for a moment longer, and then nodded, a short, choppy motion with little if any of his usual grace. "Very well then. It's just after ten o'clock. Your mom is about to pull into the driveway. Do your best to convince her you spent the night safely at home. We'll stay here and watch over the two of you. Also, if you can convince her it's safe to leave on an extended trip, that would be very helpful. Once she's gone, I'll come back for you."
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, only to be distracted by the sound of the Jeep's engine as it rolled to a stop on the cement pad.
As I looked back, Alec's eyes captured me. "You're sure this is what you want?"
I managed a nod, and then the downstairs door crashed open. "Adri, honey. Where are you?"
Alec was gone when I looked back. Only the slight sway of my curtains gave evidence he'd just casually jumped out of my second-story window.
I heard Mom's equipment bags hit the floor one after another. The sound of her tromping up the stairs finally roused me from my state of shock.
"I'm in my room, Mom."
Apparently the sound of my voice was at least slightly reassuring, she was only a little wild-eyed by the time she opened the door and stuck her head in my room.
"Oh, there you are, dear. I was worried you were gone."
I forced a chuckle. "Please, Mom. Where else would I be? Saturdays are one of my only two chances all week to actually sleep in. It isn't like I'm going to climb out of bed at the crack of dawn and go hiking or something."
Mom's chuckle was almost genuine. If Alec hadn't implied she was going to suspect I'd been up to no good, I probably wouldn't have even noticed how off she sounded.
"You're right, dear. I shouldn't have doubted you. I just had a few kids come hiking past this morning talking about this massive party the entire school was at last night. I know it's completely irrational, but I kept thinking about you there with all that alcohol."
I was so nervous about answering her question that I didn't realize she was headed over to shut my window until she was already so close that there was no hope of intercepting her. Hopefully Alec had kept moving after he'd jumped. Otherwise Mom's questions were about to get a bit more pointed.
"Mom, how could you think that? I've never even had the slightest desire to do something like that." The lies were starting to add up, but Alec had acted like it was important not to be grounded right now. That and I really didn't want to get into the kind of trouble the truth would bring.
"That's a good point, but you can't blame me for being worried, sweetie. I mean with this new boyfriend of yours. You know I don't trust boys who drive sports cars. Especially not the really cute ones who have a way of making every female in sight go all gooey on the inside."
She slid the window shut with a sigh, rather than screaming in shock, so Alec wasn't lying on the ground with a pair of broken legs.
Apparently Brandon's charms were enough to make Mom forget herself while he was around, but not so great as to keep her from worrying when he wasn't. I shrugged uncomfortably. "He's not my boyfriend, Mom. I mean he wasn't really ever my boyfriend, but even less so now."
Mom looked away from the skyline, a new batch of concern painted across her features. "I'm so sorry, dear. I didn't particularly approve of him, but I wasn't going to get really vocal about it. Not when he was your first boyfriend. What happened?"
I didn't have to pretend to be hurt and disappointed. Even knowing that Alec was everything I'd thought Brandon was, I still felt used and disappointed. "I just wasn't what he was looking for. He made it very clear the last time I saw him."
Mom crossed the distance from the window and wrapped her arms around me. "Teenage boys are so cruel. I'm sorry. Do you want to go out for ice cream this afternoon?"
My smile came much easier than it would have if Alec hadn't magically come into my life. "That is the time-honored method for dealing with breakups."
Whatever Mom had been planning on saying was interrupted by the perky jingle of her cell phone. She shot me an apologetic look as she answered it, but I already knew Mr. Peters had taken to calling her at unusual times to get updates on where she was at with her shots for the tourism brochure.
"This is she. Yes, I'm doing well, thanks, may I ask who's calling? Yes, I am a photographer. Why yes, I did have a couple of pieces that I submitted last year, but they never got printed. No, I've never heard of...yes, of course. Well, that's really not my area of expertise. I might know of a person or two who might be interested in helping you out..."
Mom's face was nearly as surprised as the time Dad had come home from work and announced he'd just taken the next two days off and we were going up to St. Cloud for a vacation starting in twenty minutes. I wasn't sure who'd called, or what exactly they were after, but it was looking like she was going to have a really good story to tell when she managed to get off of the phone.
"I appreciate your interest, but as I said, that really isn't the kind of thing I do. Oh. Well, I have commitments here, projects I'm working on. For three weeks?" She looked at me with wide eyes. "I'd have to confirm that. Can I call you back in half an hour?"
Mom stood there with the phone up against her ear for several seconds before shaking herself and looking at me. "That was some kind of promoter. She wants me to go out and shoot a fashion show in Paris. For a week and a half, and then another one in Italy. I've never heard of either of the shows, but she's offering me twenty thousand dollars for just three weeks."
I felt my eyes go wide at the idea of something so unbelievable happening to us, and then even wider as I realized this must be what Alec had been referring to. 'Convince her it's fine for her to leave' indeed. He hadn't been kidding about getting us out of the country.
"Mom, you have to go! This is the biggest opportunity ever!"
She looked doubtful. "Sweetie, I know it seems exciting, and heaven knows we could use the money, but that just isn't my kind of thing."
I shrugged. "Yeah, but once you've had some paying photography jobs it's sure to help land others. It isn't your ideal kind of work, but it's still a good start, and you never know where it might lead."
"I can't leave you here alone. Not only that, I've still got the brochure to do."
Obviously I was going to have to work harder. "Mom, I'll be fine. Just think of it as an extended hike. You'll even have cell phone coverage, so you can check in with me as often as you want." At least I hoped we'd be able to arrange that somehow. "As for the brochure, you've got scads of great shots already. Maybe if you call up Mr. Peters you'll be able to work something out."
Actually I was positive Mr. Peters would be amiable to the idea. At least he would be if Alec had remembered to work whatever magic he'd used on the Mayor the first time. Of course it was possible he'd forgotten to make the arrangements, but somehow I doubted it.
Mom looked like she was starting to waver. "It does seem like a great opportunity, but there just isn't any good way to know for sure it's legitimate."
That didn't sound like Alec at all. "Are you sure, Mom? They didn't arrange anything you could use to verify they're for real?"
I suddenly realized why parents got such a big kick out of catching their kids doing something wrong. Mom looked so sheepish I almost laughed.
"Well, he did say he'd arrange for an immediate advance to be wired over to our bank, but it's closed on Saturdays, and it isn't like I can go calling up the bank president for something trivial like that."
I opened my mouth, still unsure what to say in response to her latest excuse, only to be interrupted by her cell phone again.
"Yes, this is she. Mr. Kard? Oh, hello. A wire? Really? I didn't realize you even had anyone working today."
Mom listened for several more seconds and then hung up. "They just sent the money. Apparently it's for real. The bank president was just calling to tell me the money has been confirmed, subject to my accepting the job."
Now was the time to strike. "Mom, go call Mr. Peters, and I'll start pulling your stuff together."
It's amazing how quickly you can pack when it's for someone else, and they aren't around to tell you what you can or can't throw into their suitcase. Even with my lack of sleep starting to catch up with me, I was still essentially done by the time Mom wandered into her room, staring at her phone like she wasn't sure it was really possible for it to have just told her what she'd just heard.
"He says it's fine. He'll swing by next week to pick up the shots I think are the most promising, and then he'll see if he can't put the brochure together from that."
She noticed the suitcases and the empty hangers for the first time. "Honey, there isn't any reason to be in such a hurry. We haven't really decided to take the job yet, and even if we do, I'm sure we won't be able to arrange a flight for another day or two."
Right. If Alec really had arranged this incredible trip, literally overnight, he'd have her on a plane much faster than anyone else would've believed possible.
"Mom, we've already gone through every single one of your objections, and they've all been taken care of. I'll be fine, the brochure will still be completed on schedule, and the job is as real as it gets. The only thing left to do is call them back and accept before they decide to offer it to someone else."
It obviously hadn't crossed Mom's mind that they might decide to go with someone else. Waffling over whether or not to take the job was one thing when she was sure she'd have it in the end. It was entirely different when it might cost her the biggest break she'd ever had. She nodded jerkily as she stepped out of the room, already dialing.
I felt my eyelids drooping by the time she came back. "They want me to leave right now. She said she's already arranged for a charter plane out of St. George. If I leave in the next ten minutes, we can make the flight out of Salt Lake International with something like half an hour to spare."
We both sat there in silence for a few seconds as everything sank in, and then Mom exploded into motion. She ran downstairs to repack her photography equipment, all the while yelling upstairs to verify that I'd packed all of the other essentials she was going to need.
Almost before I'd even finished assimilating how quickly Alec had pulled everything together, Mom was backing down the lane as I waved goodbye.
Alec appeared within thirty seconds of Mom's departure, Isaac close behind him. "We need to go. One of Brandon's people just got close enough to smell us. They left before we could tell for sure who it was, but the odds of them coming back with lots of help just went through the roof. If we're still around when they do, things will get ugly."