Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow

Book One of The Angels of Somerled

By L. L. Muir

AMAZON KINDLE EDITION

PUBLISHED BY

Lesli Muir Lytle

www.llmuir.weebly.com

Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow © 2012 Lesli Muir Lytle

All rights reserved

Amazon Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art © 2012 Kelli Ann Morgan / Inspire Creative Services

Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jamison is crushing on the new girl next door. Bad news—the neighbors are Somerled cult-members killing off their own. Worse news—she’s next in line for sacrifice. Jamison will have to rise above the coward he thinks he is to get to the bottom of it all. Only the bottom...goes all the way to the top.

Something is terribly wrong with Skye. She’s experiencing emotions like the mortal teenager she’s pretending to be. When she finally asks the right questions, she finds answers that will rock the Somerled world...

...and none of her options include Jamison, the boy who has stolen the heart she was never meant to have.

Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow is the first book in the Angels of Somerled Series. Book Two, Freaking Off the Grid, will be available Spring 2012. For more information, go to my website at www.llmuir.weebly.com.

DEDICATION

To my children,

Tyson, Lyndsi, Logan, Dylan, and Cameron...

for letting me see the world through their eyes

every day.

CHAPTER ONE

“You’re such an idiot.” Jamison shook his head.

Ray grinned as he watched his paper airplane glide out the glassless window and into the darkness. “You love me.”

Jamison didn’t know whether it was the glow of white paper or his imagination that his eyes followed, arching off to the right, then lodging in a corn stalk twenty feet below the old tree house. He itched to turn on the flashlight, to see if it had landed where he thought, but that would screw up their little stake-out.

The tree was enormous, nearly five feet in diameter, and the ancient clubhouse was so insanely high people forgot it was there. Built thirty or forty years ago, before people knew better than to pound railroad stakes into living trees, a dozen three-foot boards were nailed to the side of the trunk, creating a ladder. Not realizing it had been mortally wounded, the tree hung on to those boards like a dutiful soldier. The gaps between the rungs stretched with each year and little kids could no longer use them.

Not that they would want to; even Jamison hated being up so high.

Another page was loudly ripped from a dusty tabloid.

“Dude!” Jamison groped for the magazine in the dark and pulled it away from the childhood friend whom he’d barely recognized two days before when Jamison had returned to his grandpa’s farm. “I didn’t freeze my butt off ‘til three o’clock in the morning just so you could give us away.”

“Oh yeah. Okay.”

Behind them, Burke began to snore.

“Hey. Hey, wake up. It’s almost time.” Ray thumped on the guy until he stopped snoring and dragged himself over to join the party.

“This better be good, man.” Burke rubbed his eyes and set his chin on the two-by-four window frame. There was no moon, but in the eerie blue light from the stars, the skater beanie hanging off the back of his head made his profile look like an alien’s.

Space was tight, with all three of them looking out the rectangle opening, but at least Jamison was warmer. Colorado in the fall was like Siberia to a guy who’d spent the last five years in Texas.

A door spring creaked from the left, then creaked again, as if the neighbor’s old porch screen had slowly opened and then shut even slower.

“Holy crap,” Ray whispered. His legs started bouncing.

“Relax.” Jamison tried not to get too excited. So someone was up at three a.m. just like Ray had promised. They still had no clue what was planned, only that it was a secret, and maybe a cult thing.

“It’s not that. I have to piss.” Ray’s legs still shook.

“You’ll have to hold it,” Jamison ordered.

“No way, bro. My Dew just hit.” Ray stood up. “I’m going down.”

“Me too.” Burke stood up. “I gotta go too.”

A chill shot up and down Jamison’s spine. If he got busted spying on the neighbors, his mom would kill him. Heck, he’d die of embarrassment all by himself if that hot girl heard about it; either way, he’d be dead. When he started school tomorrow, he wanted to be able to look her in the eye again, not hide from her.

“Just find a bottle,” he pleaded.

“No way. It would overflow.” Ray shuffled toward the exit in the corner of the floor. “I’d arc it out the window, but I might hit my skateboard.”

Burke snorted.

“Okay. But if you’re going down, be quiet. And hurry.”

A few seconds later Jamison was alone. He pulled his hoodie over his head but held it out from his ears, listening for Ray to make too much noise.

A breeze disturbed the field below.

At first, he worried it was his friends, peeing over the fence. Why else would the tree leaves not be moving too? But the rustling came from the ground and grew louder, as if tons of people were walking through the dense drying field.

Jamison turned back to the window.

Tons of people. Holy crap.

Suddenly he’d have given anything to be tucked in bed, completely oblivious to what his grandpa’s freakish neighbors did in the middle of the night. Maybe if he, too, would have needed to pee, he could’ve snuck back into the house instead of sitting in the front row of what he hoped wouldn’t be some sort of ritual sacrifice.

They made movies out of this stuff. A boy witnesses a murder. Boy reports the murder. There is no body. Soon...there is no boy.

Not daring to sit front and center in case the moon suddenly showed up, he stood and moved back, content to watch only what came into view. He tugged harder on his hood, to hide his blond hair, folded his arms, and tucked his cold hands into his armpits, grateful for the thick soft cotton of his new sweatshirt.

Small glowing lights moved among the plants, headed for the center of the field. As Jamison shifted from foot to foot the specters spread into a circle about fifty yards out from the tree. At first, he thought someone was going to burn the field, but the lights were as steady as the robed people carrying them.

But they weren’t actually carrying them. The light came from under their white clothes as if each person wore a single, battery-operated Christmas light on one shoe. He would have laughed at the costumes if he hadn’t just noticed that the neighbors were standing in a ring, in the middle of...of...a crop circle!

He, Ray, and Burke had climbed up pretty early—around eight o’clock. They’d looked over that field for an hour or so before it got dark. They would have noticed a freaking crop circle!

Come on. Come on. If those two didn’t hustle, they’d miss it. They’d never believe him if the circle somehow disappeared by morning. He’d never believe it. They’d also never believe the lights—coming from...wherever.

They’d believe the robes, though; this group wasn’t just eco-friendly, they were eco-nuts. Calling themselves Somerleds, they lived like the Amish or Mennonites—kinda keeping to themselves, living simply—only instead of wearing black all the time, they wore white. Ray told him they wore only raw wool and raw cotton, and as far as his friend knew, they only ate raw food as well. No meat. Strictly vegetarians.

At least if they were sacrificing something, or someone, they wouldn’t be eating it afterward. For some reason, that put Jamison a little more at ease. He still stayed back from the window, though. Who knew what might light up next and clearly show the Somerleds the face of their new neighbor/spy?

The circle of lights and bodies settled. Nothing else moved through the field; all were contained in that deep bowl of drying husks, the sides towering over the tallest of heads, the tassels waving in the breeze like flags above a circus tent.

Very clever; no one in that flat county would notice the meeting place unless they were flying overhead...or perched in one of Granddad’s windbreak trees. They would never get away with this closer to the mountains.

But just what were they trying to get away with?

Movement.

A taller one—had to be a man—moved around the circle, stopping at each person for a minute. When he stopped near a small figure, the two hugged. For just a second that hot girl’s face was lit up over the man’s shoulder, her hair spilling down the guy’s arm, and Jamison was hit by an invisible Mac truck.

She was there. She was part of it. He’d fallen for a circus freak.

Jamison moved to the side of the window, wanting a better look, but more afraid of getting caught than before.

“Just show them a little respect for the good neighbors they've been to me,” his granddad had asked in his letter.

Jamison had never been so near Somerled people before. For the last two days he’d tried not to stare and had done a pretty good job, he’d thought. He was a good actor, just like most kids in big city high schools; you had to walk a thin line between ignoring the dangerous people and showing them enough respect, and do both without drawing their attention. He’d managed to live a pretty invisible life in Texas and treating the Somerleds like dangerous gang members had been a good plan...

Until a girl his age had pulled up in a green BMW and caught him with his mouth hanging open. Her clothes marked her a Somerled, but her car was anything but simple. What was up with that?

He wouldn’t call her pretty, but she had a look that said one of these days she’d be beautiful. Her nose was kind of cute and boxy on the end. Her eyes were so dark you couldn’t tell where the iris ended and the pupil began. There was something warm and melty about those eyes, like chocolate in the bottom of a black cup.

She styled her brown hair the same as every other American female did—long and straight. It swung like a heavy drape when she walked.

And she wasn't overly hot, or at least he'd never be able to tell with all her white layers of clothes. Her pants looked like white jeans. She wore an off-white t-shirt that showed in the V of her same-colored sweater. Her rough-looking coat was the color of pencil lead. Her boots looked like moccasins and matched the fringe of her scarf—pale and bumpy like the inside of an orange peel. A She-eco-nut. Just like the rest. Just like you’d find all over the world.

But she wore plain pretty well. Whether it was the confidence in her walk, or her steady gaze when she’d finally noticed him, he couldn't say. One thing was for sure, though. She’d gotten his attention and he was never going to get it back.

Especially when she teased him with crop circles and secret meetings in the middle of the night.

The tall one finally moved away from her and walked toward the center of the circle. His movements were slow, deliberate. Bent corn stalks tugged at his robes as he passed over them, but he kept going until he reached the center.

Jamison was relieved there wasn’t an altar in sight.

The Somerleds cleared their throats, then began...singing...kind of. It was more like the sound an orchestra makes when the musicians are warming up, only with voices.

A choir? Some stupid kind of choir practice at three o’clock in the morning? Something that couldn't be sung in a building somewhere, but in a crop circle?

Jamison smirked. How lame. Oh, he was going to kill Ray.

The noise sharpened, the voices blending better. He'd stay and watch for another minute, then he was going to bed. Ray could live until morning when they met up at school. If this was his idea of a joke, he’d be dead before first period.

Jamison glared out at the scene, disgusted that he’d lost sleep for this. He didn’t know what he’d been hoping to see, maybe a body being buried or some blood-drinking ceremony, but not this. Okay, the crop circle was pretty cool, but that was it.

He was about to turn away when the man in the center suddenly started getting taller and taller. Only he wasn’t growing—he was rising in the air!

With the lights from the far side of the circle it was clear there was nothing lifting him up!

But then, twenty feet in the air, nearly straight out from the tree house, he...exploded.

Fiery pieces of him flew in all directions and disintegrated, like a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. But there had been no sound. The singing had stopped short when the guy exploded.

Holy crap! They blew him up!

“Holy shit!” Ray's voice rose through the drop door and none too quietly.

Immediately, light hit the tree house—not small lights but more powerful beams, like cop flashlights. The Somerleds started moving back into the corn, heading not in the directions they came from, but toward the trees! Some started to run.

Jamison's heart splashed into his bladder and he thought he'd piss his pants. He hurried to the hole and leaned over.

“Get out of here!” he hissed. “They're coming.”

But Ray had already noticed. He was nearly sitting on Burke's head as the two climbed down as fast as the awkward rungs would allow. If Jamison tried to follow, he'd get to the ground just in time to welcome the neighbors to his back yard.

Crap!

Would they come looking in the tree house?

He peeked out the window. Long robes didn't seem to be slowing anyone down. They looked like a search party after escaped convicts and they didn’t appear concerned about the fence, either. Did they expect to run right through it?

Hell yes, they'd come looking in the tree house.

Suddenly he remembered the other trap door, but this one opened onto the roof. Jamison had “remodeled” when he'd inherited the hideout. Although with no handholds of any kind, and nothing to keep him from falling off the roof, the opening had only been used to hide contraband when Grandpa started huffing and puffing his way up the tree.

Jamison moved beneath it, thankful to still be deep in the shadows where the flashlight beams didn’t reach him.

No go. Crap crap crap. He’d remembered the hole being so much larger.

The side window was barely big enough, but he wasn’t complaining. He thrust one leg through and found a fat branch for his shoe. With a bit of maneuvering he found enough footholds to make his way to the roof and ease himself onto it, flattening as best as he could. The wood was cold and would have been smooth if not for decades of bird droppings, leaves, and sap sealing out the elements as well as shingles would have.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” The taunting voice came from far below. The clubhouse was over six feet tall, so now that Jamison was on the roof his mind did the math and he froze. He was too high. He would die if he fell.

“Please, God, help me!” Ray wasn't acting. He wasn't joking. He sounded terrified, but Jamison couldn’t help; he couldn't move. His mom would have to call the fire department in the morning and they'd come after him with a cherry picker, like a stupid cat.

All he could do was listen.

A deep laugh rumbled up to the canopy of dried leaves that waited for just the right breeze to pry their grasps from the high branches. “Don't you just love Desperation Prayers?”

“Oh yes,” a woman answered. “They're like dessert, like the cherry on top. I bet I’d like cherries.”

“Get your hands off me!” It was Burke’s voice. “Let me go, you mother—”

“Now, now. Is that any way to talk? We're going to help you, son.”

“I don't need help, you sick—”

“Stop that. You'll only feel worse for it in the end.” The woman's voice and Burke's were moving away.

“Yes, and you have enough to repent over already, don't you think?” The deep voice laughed again. “Come along, Ray. Do you mind if we call you Ray?”

Ray couldn’t be fond of cops, not with the candy store in his pockets he’d shown off to Jamison that day. Maybe that was why he sounded so terrified. Maybe he thought he'd be arrested.

But that wasn't right. They weren’t trespassing. They were on Jamison’s property, or at least they had been. If the Somerleds called the cops, Jamison would set them straight. They had no reason to arrest anyone. If anything, the neighbors should be charged with kidnapping.

But Jamison couldn't defend anyone stuck in a tree. He wanted to get down—he was freezing—but there had been so many of them. Some could still be waiting for him to show himself.

Forget that. I’d rather freeze.

The day before, he’d run across a powerful magnet, a slingshot, and a mini recorder. If he’d have remembered to bring them up to the tree house, he could have been recording this crap!

Murmurs started below, getting closer, getting louder. Although he was expecting it, vibrations sent a painful wave of panic through him when someone dragged himself up through the hole, into the clubhouse.

“Cool.”

More vibrations.

“Yeah, but look at the view.”

Heavy steps shuffled toward the big window.

“Uh, oh. Not good.”

“Not good is right.”

“Well, we've cleaned up messes before.” The small search party moved around the room, tossing around magazines, snooping through the long wood boxes that served as storage and seating for generations of little boys’ butts.

“Are you going to come out, Jamison?” The words pushed through the wood.

Hell no.

He wasn't even going to breathe unless they climbed out, squeezed through those twisted tree limbs, and crawled onto the roof. They had no proof he was there. No proof.

He held his lungs open so air could come and go as it pleased, but he wouldn't rustle a friggin' leaf!

“Do you think he's here?” one whispered.

Jamison smiled in relief—they didn't know for sure!

“He has to be. Why would those two be here without him?”

“I don't know. Skye said Ray's been watching her closely. If he knew about the tree house, he could have come without Kenneth's grandson.”

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Another trap door.”

Jamison felt pressure on the hip that covered the escape hatch. He held still, not pushing back, but not giving way. In his bladder, Jamison’s heart moved over to make room for his Dew. If he pissed his pants, would they think it was rain?

“A seventeen-year-old couldn’t fit through there.”

“But he could be on the roof... You on the roof, Jamison?”

CHAPTER TWO

Moments earlier...

The silence was broken by a “Holy shit!” and it took Skye a moment to realize she hadn’t imagined it.

From inside the deep circle of flattened cornstalks the only thing visible, besides the star-dotted sky, was the row of trees marking the end of Kenneth’s property. Nestled in the branches of the second tree was the old clubhouse. Dangling beneath the clubhouse, and to either side of the giant trunk, were the spot-lit faces of two wide-eyed teenagers.

No!

Chaos erupted around her. The Final Host moved as one toward the trees. Some broke into a run. She had to go along. What excuse could she offer if she didn’t?

A twisted ankle?

Her ankles didn’t twist.

Too tired?

Her kind didn’t need rest.

Too distraught over losing Marcus?

She wasn’t supposed to be. Losing people was the one constant of their existence. In fact, they’d be losing her in a matter of weeks.

Her turn to stand in the center of the circle had never bothered her before, but this assignment was different. She thought she’d become attached to the old neighbor because he was unusually loveable, in that rough Scottish way. Really, how could anyone resist such honesty, such charm?

But then, two days ago a lot of things changed. Two days ago she’d felt a tug in her empty chest and looked up to see Kenneth Jamison’s handsome grandson looking back at her. Two days ago she’d slipped easily into the character of the sixteen-year-old girl she was supposed to resemble. Of course she didn’t feel mortal; she’d never feel that. But she’d felt something. And in a body with no sensation, feeling something was monumental.

What she felt for the old man had been but a warning. She should have reported it right away. She saw that now.

Step by step she dragged her feet through the cornfield, but instead of leaping over the fence with the others, she stalled. She couldn’t bear it. Young Jamison would have noticed her in the circle. What a freak he must believe her to be.

If he’d seen.

There was a chance he hadn’t recognized her in the darkness, from that distance, and that slim chance kept her from joining in the chase. If she came face to face with him now, he’d fear her, and she dreaded seeing that emotion mar his strong face. Even worse would be finding disgust in his lovely blue eyes.

While they’d noticed each other over the fence for the past two days, she’d gotten a good look at him. They’d exchanged smiles, a nod of the head. A little wave once. His brows were much darker than his golden blond hair with their ends bowed up like the edge of a wing. His flat cheeks rippled into dimples when he’d laughed with his mother, and his straight white teeth only made his Texas tan stand out that much more.

So foolish! What she should worry about was losing his cooperation, not his approval. Making an enemy of Jamison Shaw would jeopardize her assignment, and all she could think about was his dimples?

Ridiculous! She was impervious to everything. She felt nothing. The emotions of mortals were things she watched from a distance, manipulated when necessary. They did not manipulate her.

Why, then, did she suddenly feel opposing waves inside her body, crashing into each other? What would the others say? Was she flawed? Would they call for a replacement and send her to the center of the circle early?

Fear. This is fear.

She sagged against the fence and nearly laughed in relief. Those of the Final Host had nothing to fear; that was the entire point of The Arrangement.

Her thoughts calmed. Everything would happen as it was destined to happen. Jamison, and the strange connection she felt with him, had a purpose. She needed only to wait and see what that was.

She heard Ray Peters pleading for God’s help and found a gap through which she could watch the proceedings. He was on the ground, held firmly by three of her robed “cousins.” Shock had him shaking like a junkie in withdrawals and she pitied him, even though he half-deserved a good fright. She’d warned him to mind his own business, first kindly, then sternly. She wondered if at that moment her warning was replaying in his head—”Curiosity killed the cat. Curiosity killed...the cat.”

She took a deep, bracing-but-unnecessary breath and looked back to where the other captive sat.

It wasn’t Jamison!

A very black-haired Burke Costley struggled and spit, but his captors only laughed and interrupted when he began cursing. If he meant to punch empty air he was succeeding nicely. He probably saw six robed men, not three, and he was fighting the wrong three.

Clearly he was far too wasted for adrenaline to sober him up. The fight drained quickly, turning his arms to sagging rubber and he slumped to the ground in a loose pile next to his well-recognized beanie. Burke was soon carried away like a baby, and Skye had little doubt that if left to himself, he probably wouldn’t remember anything in the morning.

As Ray was led away his army fatigues churned beneath him, but there was no need. He barely touched the ground, thanks to his escort.

The yard was quickly emptying of white robes, except for the circle of men surrounding the base of the tree, as if they might shake the mighty trunk until Jamison dropped from the branches like a ripe peach. Thank goodness that wasn’t an option; from that height, they’d end up with peach jam.

Skye had assumed, when she’d first seen Kenneth’s grandson, that he noticed her only because of her apparent age. After all, she’d been given plain, non-memorable looks. But as she’d moved throughout the compound, and he’d gone in and out of his grandfather’s house, the connection between them had become real.

It was this connection that made her sharply aware of his presence over nearly thirty feet above her. Too bad she hadn’t been so aware of him before the ceremony began. If she hadn’t been so distracted over losing dear Marcus, perhaps she would have felt that tug and warned the rest. An interruption would have been welcomed; it would have supplied an excuse to keep Marcus for an additional day.

Lucas and Jonathan began climbing the tree. If the situation weren’t so serious, their struggle to find the elusive footholds in billowing skirts would have been funny. The two were aware of Skye’s assignment and that Jamison could not be handled as Ray and Burke would be. But what would they do? Jamison must not resist. If he struggled and fell...

She turned her back; she couldn’t watch. Lucas and Jonathan would keep him safe. Besides, she and the boy would both be embarrassed if Jamison fought like Burke then found her watching it all for entertainment.

Conversation was apparently unaffected by gravity since she couldn’t catch a word that was said. She strained to discern a voice other than Lucas and Jonathan’s, but got nothing.

Leaning back, she slid down the fencepost until the ground hit her rump and she folded her bell sleeves over her knees. Nothing to do but wait and count stars.

Two robed figures vaulted over the fence to land beside her.

“Too weak to clear the fence, Skye?” Lucas chucked her under the chin and pulled her to her feet so abruptly she nearly took flight.

Jonathan looked at her closely. “More likely she didn’t wish the young man to know of her participation. It might have played against her, and she is working under a time constraint.”

She gave Jonathan a generous smile. He was a great reader—minds, faces, auras—he read them all. Clearly. Subjectively.

“Well, then, you have little to worry over, my dear.” Lucas began walking along the fence, toward the house. “He wasn’t up there.”

Skye had begun to follow, but stopped. “What do you mean, he wasn’t up there?” she whispered a bit loudly.

“He. Wasn’t. Up. There.” Jonathan walked around her to follow Lucas. “No heat traces of him on the ground, either, so relax.”

Of course she couldn’t relax! She happened to know Jamison had been up there. He was still up there. The question was what should she do about it?

Perhaps he was asleep, under a blanket they hadn’t checked. Perhaps he’d missed it all. But that wasn’t likely. Lucas and Jonathan were anything but subtle. They wouldn’t have tiptoed up the tree, taken a peek and come back down. They would have stomped through from corner to corner and bellowed out the windows.

Jamison wasn’t asleep. He’d seen it all, and now he was hiding. She couldn’t blame him. She’d hide if she were him, if she’d seen what he’d seen then heard his friends being taken away.

She had a choice, which was odd since she never had choices to make, only clear-cut objectives. There was no owner’s manual to tell her to report any strange connections she felt with her mortal counterparts. She had no clear obligation to correct Lucas when he claimed Jamison wasn’t up there. After all, her senses could be wrong. She wasn’t supposed to have such a sense anyway. Who was to say she wasn’t imagining something up there? It was over the property line, unhallowed ground. It could be a demon.

It could be, but it wasn’t. It was only Jamison.

Only Jamison. If only it were that simple.

CHAPTER THREE

“There’s the bell. You’d better get going.” Jamison’s mom gave him a subtle squeeze and turned toward the parking lot.

He hoped she wouldn’t look back because he wasn’t moving an inch until Ray showed up. Screw first period.

Mom didn’t look back, but before her car pulled onto the street a green BMW screamed into the space she’d just left.

Okay, actor boy. Act cool. You saw nothing. She knows nothing. I was never there.

The door opened and a ball of white and gray unfurled. He watched like someone had commanded him not to take his eyes off her. So much for cool.

She must be cold. More layers than usual. A leather book bag dug into her shoulder. A white glove pushed the door shut and she turned. Sunglasses. Clever.

Were they allowed to wear sunglasses? Plastic, black sunglasses?

“Hey.” She smiled as she walked toward him, but she revealed nothing. “You’re Kenneth’s grandson.” She held out a gloved hand and stopped two feet away. Guess she forgot she was in a hurry.

“That’s me.”

“You’re wondering if I’m allowed to wear sunglasses.”

Holy shit, he thought, but he kept his face blank, except for his raised eyebrow. Granddad had taught him that, years ago.

“I’m teasing. Don’t imagine I can read minds. I just get asked that every time I wear them.” She started to take them off, took one look into his eyes, then replaced them.

“Hungover?” He couldn’t believe he just asked, but he covered the slip with a friendly smile.

“That’s not allowed.” She laughed. “But I am allowed to shake hands.”

Stupid! Her hand was still out there, hanging!

He grabbed it a little fast, a little hard, but she just laughed again. It wasn’t a silly Tickle-Me-Elmo laugh like most girls. It was a real laugh, like...the kind of laugh that made you think a person got you. And he wished there was a stupid red button on her palm he could push to hear it again.

Push here.

He still held her hand, not looking up as a kid ran past even though he felt the guy staring. Her gloves were the softest he’d ever felt, like the angel hair his mother always laid under the nativity scene at Christmas time.

“Lamb’s wool. Nice, huh?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, still holding firm. She’d given him the excuse. Not his fault. “Like angel hair.”

She snatched back her hand, biting her bottom lip.

“Nope. Just wool.” She cleared her throat. “I’m Skye.”

“Skye what?”

What an idiot. He’d let a little bit of small talk make him forget all about Ray and Burke, about what the Somerleds may have done to them to keep them from making it to school that morning. Ray knew how Jamison dreaded that first day. If somewhere, deep down, there was any trace of the best friend he’d grown up with, Ray wouldn’t let him down today. Not if he had a choice.

“Somerled.”

“Skye Somerled?” Skepticism snarled out around his tongue. “Do they make you change your name when you join up?”

Her lips pursed like an old woman’s, but with less wrinkles, pushing the tip of her nose up slightly. Cute nose.

“I’ve always been Skye Somerled, thanks. And no one joins up; you’re either a Somerled, or you’re not.”

“And what if you start craving hamburgers?”

She smiled and folded her arms. Ray’d been right about the vegetarian stuff.

Jamison guessed she’d be blowing off the whole first period too, and the thing he’d dreaded all day—running into her—was the last thing he wanted to end.

“Or what if you fell in love with...blue jeans?”

“Ha!” She tossed her head back and put her hands on her hips, holding back all those layers of sweater, coat, and scarf. Actually, the white jeans looked pretty hot.

“Or if you got caught wearing black sunglasses?”

He didn’t want to let the chance pass to learn more about her cult rules. The thought of them punishing her for misbehaving made him want to retch.

She bit her bottom lip again and looked down, adjusted her bag, preparing to walk away. “I found them in the car.”

She’d mumbled, but he’d heard her. It was his turn to laugh. She didn’t sound like she was afraid of punishment. She was just embarrassed to get busted. Sunglasses weren’t allowed, after all.

When he could speak again, he meant to say something smooth, but what came out was, “I’ll keep your secret.”

Her head snapped up. Damn it!

“You’d better be careful, though. Don’t forget you’re wearing them and drive home like that.” He gave her a teasing smile to distract her from the smell of fear in the air—his fear. It blew in and out his nose with each breath. He hoped she had a cold so she’d miss it. Surely girls who helped blow up people in mid-air knew what fear smelled like.

Jamison struggled to keep a straight face and block the image of Ray and Burke being lifted off the ground, knowing they were seconds away from being blown to smithereens.

Okay. He needed to get away from her. This couldn’t end well.

“Fine,” she said. “You keep my secret, and I’ll keep yours.”

He couldn’t have walked away if his shoes were on fire.

Would she slap his hand away if he reached for her glasses? If he could just see her eyes, he’d know just how busted he was. No one was as good an actor as he was. No one.

“And do I have a secret?” Innocent. Think innocent.

“Don’t you?” She lowered the sunglasses and smiled a smile that bore into his soul.

He suddenly saw nothing wrong with confessing every secret he’d ever kept. Thankfully she winked and that stupid urge disappeared. He stuck his tongue between his teeth and clamped down, just in case.

“It looks like you’re all registered for classes and you’re skipping out on your first day.”

“Oh.” He looked at the schedule in his hand. “No. I’m just waiting for my friend, Ray. Said he’d meet me here before classes started.” He should get an Oscar for the morning’s performance. Honestly. “You know Ray Peters?”

Skye smiled and pushed her glasses back up, but not before he saw something flash across her face. Regret? Pity? He sure as hell hoped it wasn’t guilt.

“Sure I know Ray. And I know him well enough to not be surprised he’s late for school.”

“Yeah?” Jamison stiffened. “I know him pretty well myself. We’ve been best friends all our lives, and he’d rather die than let me down.”

She frowned, though he could barely see the pucker in her brow over the glasses. “And he’s letting you down by not showing up to school on time?”

“Yeah, he is.” Jamison looked down at the sidewalk, no longer wanting to explain. She’d think he was so stupid for wanting someone to have his back when he walked through those halls the first day. Then something else came to him; he was more worried about his first day at school than he was about what had happened to his friend. “Loser!”

“What?”

“Sorry. Not you. I’m the loser. I shouldn’t be pissed that he’s not here. I should be worried...worried about why he’s not here.”

She smiled. That was a good sign. Either she didn’t know what they’d done to Ray and Burke, or she wasn’t concerned about it. Then again, she could be a cold brainwashed zombie who didn’t care what had happened to them.

“You’re a good friend to have, I think.” She walked around him and called over her shoulder, “I wouldn’t worry about Ray and Burke if I were you. They’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

He tried not to lean into her as her bulky coat brushed his arm. The fact that he was tempted to do so blew him away. It was like there was a rubber-band stretched between them and he automatically relaxed when they were close. As she entered the main doors, he could feel the tension, the stretching, and he knew he’d be spending the rest of the day thinking of a way to stand near her again.

Then her parting words replayed in his head.

He’d never said anything about Burke!

***

Jamison entered just in time to catch his name on the PA. Morning announcements must have been running late, too.

“And we have the perfect start to Homecoming week. Jamison Shaw, whom many of you will remember from elementary school and Bowman Jr., has moved back to town. Welcome home, Mr. Shaw!”

So much for invisibility.

Jamison ignored the list of homecoming activities planned for the week like so much rain beating on his head. He would have preferred to make a fresh start with second period, but there was nowhere to hide. It might be days before his car arrived with the rest of their stuff from Texas. Until then, he’d have no haven or escape plan at his disposal. But it was all good; he wouldn’t be interrupting since his first teacher couldn’t start until the announcements were over.

He walked into Mr. Evans’ College Prep English just as the PA system dinged, signaling the end of far-too-cheerful class officers wielding what little power they were granted.

Mr. Evans lifted his head and smiled. “Welcome home, Mr. Shaw.” The drawl was a little much. How did Mr. Evans know where he’d moved from?

“Thank you, sir.” Jamison looked for a seat along the perimeter, where he might blend into the wall.

“Right up front here. Unless you’d rather stand.”

No one else was standing. If he chose to lean against the back wall, he might as well be standing on a desk waving his arms.

Jamison nodded and walked to the empty seat, but his eye caught a blur of white at the back of the room. He wanted to see if it was Skye, but his butt was already lowering into the chair. He’d look stupid if he dropped a pencil, wouldn’t he?

“We’re reading Lost Horizon. It shouldn’t take you too long to catch up to the rest of the class since I’m sure they’re all behind schedule.”

“I’ve already read it.” Jamison realized too late that he should have kept his mouth shut. What was it about having that chick around that made him so chatty?

Mr. Evan’s rolled his eyes above his bifocals. “It’s rare to find such a well-read football player, Mr. Shaw—”

“I don’t play football. Sir.”

Already? He was used to the questions, knew exactly what was coming, but he thought Coloradoans wouldn’t be nearly as obsessed with the sport as Texans were. He hadn’t expected to be cornered until gym class.

“But you’re from—”

“Texas, sir. Yes, I know.”

A student snorted.

“But you’re so—”

“Built for it, sir? Yes, I am.” He went on while Mr. Evans concentrated very hard on holding his mouth open. “And tall. Yes, I know that too. No, I don’t play basketball either. No soccer. No wrestling. No track. Did the coaches at my last high school try to get me to play? Now that you mention it, they did.”

The class erupted. Unfortunately Class Clown was not what he was going for. Class Ghost was his official title. They just didn’t know it yet.

Mr. Evans looked a little more amused than insulted, but just barely.

“And Lost Horizon is one of my mom’s favorites.” Jamison wasn’t sure the man could hear that last part.

While Mr. Evans beat on his desk with a yardstick to regain control, Jamison turned around to find Skye grinning at him. That giant rubber-band relaxed, in spite of what he knew—that she knew he knew, and that he knew she knew—just what had happened under that tree house the night before.

Unfortunately the kid behind him wanted to know what he was looking at. The guy looked at Skye, then his attention shot right back to Jamison.

“James,” the kid whispered.

“It’s Jamison.” He tried to turn forward again, but the kid was poking him in the back.

“She’s a Somerled, dude. You know. A Somerled?”

“So?” He really needed to face forward. The banging yardstick sounded like it was going to break.

“So, I think they only date their own kind, bro.”

Jamison sat forward and gave Mr. Evans his best impression of undivided attention. The class settled behind him.

“Since Mr. Shaw requires no extra time to catch up, we’ll test on the first half of the book tomorrow.”

Unhappy classmates groaned around Jamison. Some of them, he thought, were groaning specifically in his direction. But even all the complaining didn’t drown out one girl’s forced whisper.

“Jake saw them holding hands in the parking lot this morning.”

Into his mind popped the image of an incredibly soft white glove, in the center of which was a large red sticker that read, “Push here.” And he was holding it.

Holy crap. He’d never be invisible again.

CHAPTER FOUR

Neither of his friends showed up that day and the reassurance from Skye, that the pair would be fine, was a promise that faded with every passing hour. Each time he’d entered a classroom he’d hoped to see that blur of white, but they’d only had that first class together.

At lunchtime, he tried to blend into the bleachers, ignoring the girls’ volleyball team while he browsed through Lost Horizon and made a dent in the lunch his mother had packed. After being lugged around all morning the bag looked like something he’d fished out of the trash, but the food was good.

Safe, warm, happy and fed. That’s all his mother ever worried about, and since he hated her to worry, he assured her every day that all four states-of-being were covered. Although in Texas, warm had been replaced by hydrated, and jackets replaced by sunscreen and gallons of water.

His bladder, at least, was happy to be back.

When the final bell rang, Jamison raced to the parking lot but the green Beemer was gone. He hadn’t hoped for a ride, but for a dozen other things...

Another reassurance that his friends had not been blown up, or frightened to death.

Another moment of slack in the rubber-band between them.

Another chance to hear her laugh.

Maybe a casual question about who Somerleds were allowed to date.

He remembered the PA announcement about the Homecoming Dance the following Saturday, and a cold fish flapped in his stomach.

Please no.

He could just see himself up-chucking on a pair of white Cinderella slippers.

Jamison shook himself. He had more important things to do than stand and stare at an empty parking stall, imagining his worst nightmares. He had to get to the Recovery Center and see Grandpa, then track down Ray. Together they would find out if Burke had any memory of the Exploding Man Ceremony.

***

The Recovery Center smelled like a pharmacy. Med carts lined the hallway leading to his grandpa’s room and Jamison made a mental note to never take Burke along for a visit.

A woman’s voice came from room 124 as he neared. Ken Jamison was still posted under the number. It always made him smile, being reminded who he was named after, but his face froze when he recognized the woman’s laughter.

Someone had pushed that imaginary sticker in the middle of her glove.

A heaping spoonful of jealousy made that cold fish flap in his belly again and for a minute he forgot why he was standing there. Was he jealous someone else had made her smile, or jealous someone else was visiting his granddad?

No telling. Probably both.

Jamison knocked on the door as he pushed it open. He ignored the white blur by the window, looked toward the bed, and was rewarded with his grandfather’s sparkling smile.

Now sparkle wasn’t the kind of term he’d ever used when talking about his rough Scottish grandpa, but this was the second time he’d seen it. The first was the day before, when the old man was being wheeled away for some kind of test as Jamison had arrived. It took less than a second for the old Scot to recognize his grandson and when he had, the world had lit up with the raise of his eyebrows, as if there was no one else who could make him that happy.

In that instant, Jamison had come home, and the past five years had disappeared like popped bubbles.

Today was no different, even though someone else already had the old man in a good mood.

“It’s our Jamie. Come here lad. Come here.” Plaid flannel arms rose to welcome him and Jamison bent and hugged what used to be the biggest man he’d ever known. As if determined to prove he was still as strong as ever, the man squeezed Jamison until he squeaked.

“Mercy, Granddad.”

“Weel, I didna get to touch ye yesterdie, did I? All tied doon as I was.”

The old hands clutched at Jamison’s arms as he stepped back, as if Granddad couldn’t bear to let go, so he pulled up a chair and held his grandpa’s hand. He didn’t care who was watching. He’d waited a long time for such a chance.

“It’s grand to see you, son. Has yer mither come with ye?”

“Not yet.”

If the man was surprised, he hid it well.

“Ach, she’ll come ‘round, I warrant.” Granddad smiled.

The finest actor in the family wasn’t Jamison after all.

“Aye, she will that,” Skye said.

Her mocking Scottish accent pissed him off, then he looked at her. She was grinning at his grandpa and the old man was grinning back, making both green-eyed monsters start duking it out in his chest.

“Jamie, me boy, this is Skye Somerled. Skye, this is Jamison, me daughter’s lad and me pride and joy besides.”

“We’ve met.” Jamison couldn’t help but growl.

One of his grandpa’s eyebrows rose in a look that was completely Kenneth Jamison. “Oh, and I see there’s a bear inside that hide of yers, wantin’ to be let out.” The soft leathery hand slipped from Jamison’s and the old man’s arms folded. “Let’s have it. What have you done that’s got ye feelin’ mean?”

It had been so long since he’d felt so easily...known, recognized...understood.

His mother ‘got’ him, most of the time. But sometimes only a man could understand a boy.

Suddenly he wished Skye would leave the room. Not far, of course, just on the other side of a thick door.

“Kenneth, I’m going to leave you in the hands of your grumpy family.” Skye pulled on her coat. “If you survive, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She hurried to the bed, kissed a whiskered cheek, and pulled the door shut as she left the room, all under three seconds. Jamison realized why she was always a blur out the corner of his eye; she moved like a flurry of energy.

He remembered seeing plenty of Somerleds moving that quickly—through a field, the night before.

“Let’s have it, Jamie. What’s happened between you and Skye? You haven’t insulted my neighbors, have you? They’ve taken fine care of me for the past three years now.”

Jamison wanted to climb under the bed—and maybe have a nurse collapse it on top of him.

“Ach, Jamie, what is it? The truth, if ye please.”

He buried his forehead in the bedclothes, wishing away the last 24 hours. “I was just jealous, Granddad. I don’t like sharing you. I just got you back.” Jamison turned his head to the side.

“Ach, laddie, Skye’s been a boon, I’ll no deny it. But she’s not blood and bone to me as you are, aye?” The old man patted the back of Jamison’s head. “She’s an angel, lad. Be grateful to her for my sake, will ye now?”

“Aye, Granddad.” Jamison sat up and grinned. “I never said I didn’t like having her around me.”

They both laughed until the coughing started.

Kenneth Jamison had lung cancer. In his younger days he’d been a mining engineer; now he was paying the price for years of bad air, he said. Only when the old man knew he couldn’t beat it had he hired a lawyer to write his estranged daughter and asked her to come home, promising the house would be empty when she and her son arrived.

Jamison was relieved when his mother had at least called and talked to the doctors. She’d go see her da when she was good and ready and not before. He only hoped it wouldn’t be too late.

His plan was to keep the old Scot happy and alive for as long as possible. Jamison had just gotten him back and he would let Granddad go meet his maker when he was good and ready and not before.

Jamison would never be ready.

***

Ray’s house looked deserted. The day’s newspaper lay in the driveway. The carport was empty, and by the back door a cat stretched and walked away like he’d given up hope of ever being let in.

Jamison pounded on the door anyway.

“Come on, come on, come on.”

Nothing. No creaking floor, no footsteps.

He found the bell and rang it twice. He could hear it through both the door and storm door. If someone was inside, they’d have heard it.

Nothing.

He pulled out his cell for the hundredth time that day and called the only local number he’d had reason to add to his contacts, Ray’s. It went straight to voicemail.

Along Ray’s road the houses were all on the South side of the street with plenty of space in between. Even a nosey neighbor wouldn’t have noticed if a gang of Somerleds had dragged Ray home to confront his parents, or dropped off a battered teenager.

Then again, if they’d blown him up like the first guy, there wouldn’t be much to drop off, would there?

He didn’t have time to look for Burke. After school he’d walked to his mom’s new job downtown and taken her car to the Recovery Center. He’d barely had time to hit Ray’s before he had to go back and pick her up. As soon as he was home he’d start calling hospitals.

What an idiot he’d been, to believe Skye. If his friends were fine, where the hell were they? Ray had promised to meet him before class, but hadn’t. If he’d overslept, he’d be home, or at least answering his cell. He wouldn’t leave Jamison hanging all day long, not knowing. Not after last night.

They couldn’t be fine. They were either hurt, or being held somewhere, or dead.

What was it about that chick that made him forget? He’d run into her three times that day, and each time he’d put his suspicions on hold, hoped he was wrong, decided to wait and see.

Well, he wasn’t willing to wait anymore. He wasn’t going to slink into the shadows and pretend he hadn’t seen anything, like he had in Texas—like he freaking had last night!

He took a deep breath and huffed it out.

This was his home. Ray was his friend. And Jamison Shaw wasn’t going to be a nice quiet boy anymore.

Before he lost his nerve, he turned onto Granddad’s road, toward the Somerleds. His mom could wait. It was better if she wasn’t around for this anyway; questions were going to be answered, and not hers.

Adrenaline poured out his right foot and onto the accelerator. Luckily, as if they’d been warned away, no cars pulled onto the road to hinder him as he closed the distance...

...except the sherrif’s.

CHAPTER FIVE

Skye sat in the cornfield, her butt between half-dry stalks, the plants’ tassels tangling five feet above her head. Even someone looking down would have a hard time finding her, which was just what she wanted. For the first time in her existence, she was hiding.

For some reason, talking to Lucas or Jonathon was the last thing she wanted to do. There was only one other female on the Flat Springs farm, and it only took a few quick questions and a frown to know she hadn’t a clue what Skye was talking about. Whatever emotional malfunction she was having, she was having it alone.

And since when had ‘alone’ been a problem? Never, that’s when. But it was now.

She felt a sob welling in her chest, but there was no place for it to go. She even pretended to cry, making the motions, making the noise, distorting her face, but no tears came. She lifted her face and glared at what little bit of Heaven she could see.

“Why give me the feelings and no way to get rid of them?” Her whisper was eaten by the corn.

No one answered.

Suddenly, that odd loneliness eased a little as she sensed Jamison nearing—he was almost home. More proof there was something terribly wrong with her. How she wished she could run to him, tell him her troubles, let him comfort her as she knew he would...for a mortal girl. At least that weight in her chest would be shared. She wouldn’t have to carry the burden alone.

But Jamison had burdens of his own, and more to come. How could she even think of distracting him with her problems? At least that’s what the logical Skye would have said. The Skye she was at the moment screamed, “Tell him!”

But tell him what? Tell him the truth about her and she’d be telling the truth about the Somerleds—a secret well-kept for thousands of years. What right had she to tell it?

But rebellion bubbled into her thoughts. By what right had someone endowed her with emotions she was not equipped to bear? And they were emotions. Real emotions. She wasn’t capable of conjuring the storm that brewed inside her. Even with all the mortal joy and suffering she’d witnessed, from a detached distance, she never would have imagined frustration so powerful, desperation so consuming. It was a wonder the field did not go up in flames from the friction of her thoughts alone!

If she were mortal, she’d blame it all on PMS, but she couldn’t; she wasn’t pre-anything!

In all her assignments, she’d never known an emotional Somerled. Even Marcus, though he knew he would miss Skye like a daughter, had not been emotional at their parting. It had been she who had wrapped her arms around him and tried to delay the inevitable.

And her inevitable moment was coming. Could she hold on, suffer her emotions in silence, until they were purged from her in the process of transformation? Could she hold out another two weeks? Would she be able to walk calmly to the center of the circle? Would Jamison miss her?

Speaking of Jamison, why had he stopped? Why was he approaching from the South, instead of from Town? He still needed to pass her place to get home, and yet he wasn't moving.

She thought about resisting, about stubbornly staying in her private little lair until night fell, but curiosity pried her from her pity party. Once on her feet, she walked briskly through the field then shed her clothing just before emerging near the house.

The evening air would have cooled a mortal, but she couldn't feel it as she walked unseen around to the front yard. Two giant oaks, one on her side of the road, one on the other, reached across the asphalt to support each other thirty feet in the air. Their leaves were dulling to a lifeless green. Soon those leaves would be changing, falling, and revealing limbs threaded together like lover's fingers over the road that kept them apart. The autumn breezes would scatter those leaves into borrow pits and blow them across fields, like thousands of yellow and red love letters flung at each others' feet, then swept away.

Skye tip-toed across those lovers’ limbs and settled on a sturdy branch. Her hair was the pale green of drying leaves. Gray slanted across her face to continue the reflection of a branch. Her swinging calves and feet were blue, like the early evening sky behind her, as Jamison and the sheriff would view it beneath the entwined boughs.

She watched Jamison’s face through his windshield. Those wonderful eyes were easy to see from a distance, and his profile showed the high cheekbones and square jaw he’d inherited from Kenneth. She wished she could see his dimples, the long ones that ran down the sides of his face when he laughed and the vague divot in his chin. He didn’t laugh nearly enough.

She heard their conversation clearly.

Jamison was respectful while Sheriff Cooke lectured.

“I know you kids like to cut it up a bit during Homecoming week, but it's stunts like this that have our older citizens afraid to go out after supper.”

“Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir.”

Skye tried to soften the sheriff’s heart a little, bringing up memories from when he had been a teenager, feeling the urge to speed down an empty road.

Yeah, he remembered. A lot.

Apparently, the sheriff had learned early on if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And somewhere in the sheriff’s office was a beautifully framed copy of his own arrest record, primarily for speeding. Skye couldn't help but laugh.

Jamison's head snapped sharply to the branches on which she perched and she stopped laughing.

There was no possible way he could see her. Even though she was tempted to show herself, she held her wishes in check. And why would he have heard—from inside the car—when the sheriff had shown no reaction? Besides, she was a good distance away. Mortal ears could pick up very little at that distance, and it wasn't as if she'd been loud.

Did the connection work both ways?

“I know just what you're going through, son. New in town and all—well, kind of new in town, I guess. I'll just give you a warning tonight...”

Jamison turned his attention back to the officer.

“...since you're Ken Jamison's and all.” The man leaned on the car roof and lowered his voice. “How's he doing, anyway?”

“He's doing fine. I just saw him a little while ago.”

“Well, we're praying for him. Will you tell him that? And let him know the sheriff's office will keep an eye on his place, and his grandson?”

“Yes, sir. I'll tell him. Thank you, sir.”

“You a Junior?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It might not be too late, you being a transfer and all...”

“Sorry, sir. I don't play football.”

The sheriff looked like he might be reconsidering that speeding ticket after all.

“Maybe next year, though. If someone can teach me the rules.”

The sheriff laughed and dropped his arm. “If someone can teach you the rules. That's a scream.” He started walking back to his SUV. “If someone can teach him the rules,” he muttered and laughed again.

Jamison looked up at her again, or maybe he was just looking up, thinking. But then whatever he'd been thinking couldn't have been good; he jumped out of his car and ran to the sheriff’s vehicle.

The man rolled down his window.

“Sheriff? Hey, uh, would you mind helping me out for a minute?”

“What is it, son?”

“Uh. Uh. I need to go onto the Somerled compound and talk to them, and I uh...uh...”

“And you don't want to go alone? That's silly, son. They're friends of your Granddad's. Been helping him bring in his crops ever since they moved in, and they did the whole season for him this year. They're good people. The best.”

“I know. I know, but, it's just that there's this girl—”

“Skye? You scared of Skye?” The sheriff raised his chin and blinked slowly. “Ah, I see. Well, let's get going, if we're going.”

“Really? Oh, that's great. Thanks.”

Jamison ran back to his car and Skye shimmied down the tree. Two seconds after her feet hit the ground, she was inside the house, leaning back against the door.

Jonathan stood five feet from her, hands on his hips, frowning.

“Not now, Jonathan. The sheriff is coming. With Kenneth's grandson.”

Jonathan looked toward the window.

“Oh? I think now is the perfect time. Dont' you?”

“Perfect time for what?” Lucas came down the hall, filling the space with his wide and generously draped shoulders.

Oh, not Lucas!

Having to confess to Jonathon would have been bad enough. She might have even been able to get most of it out before the doorbell rang, maybe even gotten a gentle reading of the situation from him without having to hear Lucas’ opinion. But now, with Marcus gone, and Lucas in charge, she felt like she'd been sent straight to the judge without first getting to explain to her lawyer.

CHAPTER SIX

With the sheriff following closely, Jamison had never driven so perfectly in his life.

He held his breath, as he always had, when he drove under that beloved arch of tree branches that meant his journey was over. The trees had been there since the beginning of time if their size had much to do with it. And even though they were in front of the neighbor's house, not Granddad's, it was still the gateway to home.

The Parker Place, that had turned into the Somerled Compound/Farm three years before, was typical of most farms. The house sat out close to the road with a decent sized lawn in front. The driveway ran down the right side of the house, widened in the rear, then ran back out along the left side. No one with a brain would think about entering down the left side of the house, even without an exit sign.

That's what Jamison liked about his small town. There wasn't a need to mark every entrance and exit to keep traffic flowing. Drivers knew how to drive. People didn't live on top of each other, getting pissed when someone had their music up too loud or on too late at night. In the country, no one was close enough to hear.

Even Man Exploding Ceremonies could be safely carried out without your neighbors knowing, unless your neighbor was stupid enough to be up at three in the morning, which no neighbor should.

Guilt fell to his shoulders like a heavy horse blanket as he pulled around the back of the Somerled's. Whatever had happened to his friends was his fault. If he'd been a good neighbor, only one person would have disappeared last night, not three. And he wasn't responsible for the first one. Poor idiot.

On top of it all, his grandfather wouldn't be too happy with him being so inhospitable as to drive instead of walking over, let alone bringing a cop for backup. But at least feeling guilty was better that being scared to death that he'd be the next one to disappear—although that hadn't completely been ruled out. Of course, if they did decide to make Jamison disappear in a few days, he'd have his curiosity satisfied; he'd finally know what had happened to his friends.

The back porch was a wide crescent. The concrete still had traces of the red paint Old Man Parker had painted on it. For the first time the dark burgundy paint chips reminded him of dried blood.

No doubt the original owners, Parkers or not, had thought it would look nice if the porch matched the large burgundy bricks of the house. The curb made a nice burgundy border all along the driveway, but it had been repainted sometime in the past thirty years and wasn't chipping like the rest.

Jamison parked about half-way between the first barn and the house, blocking no one. The sheriff once again parked behind him.

No backing out now.

Jamison got out of the car and leaned on the open door for a minute. The sheriff's door slammed heavily in the quiet yard made entirely of gravel and dirt. The chicken coop was quiet. The washed-out barn wood seemed to absorb every sound, and the distant bellow of a cow was the only sign the place hadn't been deserted, like Ray's.

The storm door squeaked open, as it had the night before.

A blond man emerged, his long hair tied together behind his head. His white clothes were spotless, his shoulders wider than football pads. He lingered at the top of the steps and wiggled the door back and forth.

“Jonathan, bring something to get rid of this squeak, would you?” he called over his shoulder, into the dark house. “We don't want to be bothering our neighbors every time we go outside.” He turned and grinned directly at Jamison. “Young Kenneth. Sheriff? What brings you to our place?” He put his hands on his hips and paused on the top step for only a second before he started down.

Jamison's automatic reaction was to back away, hope the sheriff would take the lead and start a conversation that would miraculously end with a signed confession and his friends being dragged out of the basement, a little bruised, but still alive. He fought that urge and stepped forward instead, finally shutting his car door, to keep himself from crawling back inside and driving away like an idiot.

“Actually, I go by Jamison, not Kenneth.”

“Skye around?” The sheriff asked before Jamison could say anymore.

“She's around, but she's not able to join us at the moment.” The big blond folded his arms and continued to grin at Jamison. “Has she done something wrong, Sheriff?”

The officer laughed. “No. Of course not. I just thought maybe Jamison might like to talk to her, but if she's busy—”

The screen squeaked open again and another man stepped out. This one was just as tall, a little leaner, and had dark hair down to his shoulders that waved in all the wrong directions. Jamison's first thought was that someone should knit him a nice white hat. And holy crap, he should wear it all the time.

There was something about his face that made up for the rudeness of the blond. At least he wasn't grinning. And he wasn't fixing anything. The squeak of the tight spring ended abruptly when the door slammed into its casing. They’d been more careful the night before.

“Have you all met?” the sheriff asked.

Jamison shook his head.

“Forgive me. Lucas, this is Jamison Shaw, Kenneth's grandson, as you already know. Jamison, this is Lucas Somerled and that's Jonathan.”

Jonathan nodded. Lucas kept grinning. Jamison wanted to knock that grin into the dirt.

Lucas laughed as if he'd read his thoughts.

“All right, Jamison. We're here. Get on with it.” The sheriff moved a little closer and faced the Somerleds alongside him. Poor guy. He probably thought he was there to ask Skye to the stupid dance.

Jamison was disgusted when his brain started weighing the possible benefits of doing just that, instead of making a fool of himself, like he'd planned.

Please God, he prayed silently, let me be brave this one time, for my friends.

Lucas stopped smiling and Jonathan started. Maybe Lucas didn't like the idea of him asking Skye out and Jonathan did. Who knew what was going on in their minds? He'd never understand these people.

Jamison cleared his throat. Twice.

“Actually, Sherriff, I came to get my friends. Ray Peters and Burke Costley. They were here last night and never left.” He folded his arms and waited. Brave wasn’t so bad. He wished it had been an option in Texas, but it hadn’t.

Lucas was smiling again, but only slightly. “Were they here last night?” His hands never left his hips.

“They were, and apparently they never left. They weren't at school, and the Peters’s house looks abandoned.”

The sheriff grabbed Jamison's shoulder and turned him, looking him in the eye.

“Oh, son. I wish you would have explained what you were up to. I could have told you your friends aren't here. Let's drive over to your place and we'll talk about it, with your mom.”

The bottom fell out of Jamison's stomach and his heart dropped through the gap, to the gravel at his feet. He’d never get the rocks out now; his friends were dead and it was all his fault.

“My mom?” Jamison's mouth moved without his help. “I've got to pick her up at work.”

“That’s all right. You run home and I'll pick her up. She got on at Marsden & Marsden, right? We'll meet you back at the house.” The man headed for his vehicle. “Lucas? Can you see Jamison makes it home, please?”

Jamison headed for his car, trying not to scurry away from the murderers, but then stopped. He wasn't going to scurry anywhere. He stepped up close to the SUV as the sheriff backed up to pull around the car.

“Wait. Sheriff, wait.” The SUV stopped, the window came down. “Don't you want to know what happened here last night?”

The sheriff turned off his engine and looked over Jamison's head, exchanging a look with Lucas. Every horror movie Jamison had ever seen started playing through his mind, or rather, the parts where the main character had chosen the wrong person to trust.

Dear God, please don't let them be in on it together.

The sheriff took off his hat and laid it on the seat next to him, then leaned his arm on the open window. “What's the boy talking about, Lucas?”

Lucas shrugged. “His friends aren't here. That's all I can say.”

Jamison grabbed the sheriff's forearm.

“They...they...they've got a man missing. Ask them.”

Lucas walked closer, the other one, Jonathan, right behind him.

“Yeah, I guess we're short a man, sheriff, but only because Marcus has left us. He's been called away. Other farms aren't doing as well as ours.”

“We had a little going-away party for him last night,” offered Jonathan. “Perhaps the boy thought his friends came here for that. Although I didn't know Marcus knew the other two.”

Jamison heard a voice in his head pleading with him to let it go, but he couldn't. Not this time. He wasn't going to allow his home to become like Texas; he wouldn't hide anymore.

“They're not telling you the whole thing, sheriff. They killed someone last night. My bet is, it was Marcus. Ray and Burke saw it happen.”

Lucas laughed. “And did you witness this murder too, young Jamison?”

Jamison looked first at Lucas, then at the sheriff. Here was his last chance to save himself, but he tossed the chance over his shoulder, like a pinch of salt, for luck.

Boy witnesses a murder. Boy reports the murder. There is no body. Soon...there is no boy.

Screw it.

“Yeah, I saw it too.”

***

Ten minutes later, Jamison fidgeted while he, the sheriff and Jonathan watched Lucas maneuver his big shoulders up through the drop door of the clubhouse.

“This is dangerous. We should tear this thing down.” The sheriff pushed on a beam that held up the roof; it didn't give an inch.

Jamison grinned. “A Scotsman built it. It won’t budge unless God blows the tree down. Sir.” It was his now. Okay, if Granddad never came home again, it was his.

“Your grandpa’s said that a hundred times. But any of us could have been killed climbing up here. One day some little kid—”

“—little kids can't even reach the second rung. Sir.”

The sheriff huffed and stepped over to the window. He'd called for a deputy to pick up Mom. She was going to freak out when the guy got to her, thinking instantly that her son was either not safe, not warm, not fed, or not happy. When they told her he was fine, she wasn't going to be too happy herself, but he'd deal with it when she got there. Right then, he had some confessing to do.

“Okay, let's hear it.” The sheriff moved to the picture window.

Lucas and Jonathan stood back. They looked only mildly curious.

“Well, Ray heard Skye talking to another Somerled about how she wasn't looking forward to the three a.m. gathering.” Jamison looked at Lucas. “It wasn't Skye's fault. Ray likes to pretend he's listening to his music, with his earphones on, so he can eavesdrop.”

No one interrupted, so he turned back to the window and went on.

“So we came up here to see what might happen. It was cold.” He shivered with the memory of the temperature alone. “At three we heard their screen door open, so we knew something was up. But then Ray and Burke had to pee and climbed down. That's when I saw them.”

“Who?”

“Somerleds, I guess. Lots of people dressed in white robes. Moving through the field, to the circle...over...”

Damn.

It was gone! The crop circle was gone. Holy crap, how did they do it?

Lucas cleared his throat, probably to cover his laughter. He knew what Jamison was going to say, knew he’d look like an idiot if he said it.

Crop circles and conspiracy? He'd be headed for his first drug test if he opened his mouth.

Not this time. He wasn't going to cave now.

“They all had little flashlights or something, because I could see what was going on. They...made a big circle in the field, and I know this is going to sound stupid, but someone walked into the center of the circle and then...there was an explosion. The guy in the center just exploded. There weren't even any chunks left of him I don't think.”

“Woah. Hold it.” The sheriff looked not out the window, but at the two men behind him. “I don't suppose you want to confirm anything he's said so far.”

“No. No. Let him keep talking.”

Jamison could feel himself blushing hot in the cool air. Dusk was coming fast. If they were going to find traces of anything in the field, they had to move quickly.

“The field. We should look before it gets any later.” Jamison waited for the Somerleds to move away from the hole before he started climbing down. He chose his grip carefully, in case he got shoved from behind. His hands were shaking, and that pissed him off.

It didn't matter. The sheriff would be able to tell where the stalks had been bent over. There had to be char marks from the explosion. There had to be something. What he really needed was a couple of friends to back him up, but they'd already been eliminated. So if he was going to be vindicated, they had to get to the field. Who knew how well the Somerleds could clean a field in the middle of the night, if given the chance? They'd already managed to un-circle a freaking crop!

Just as he touched ground and backed away from the mighty tree's roots, however, a sheriff's truck pulled up and his mother jumped out. She hurried toward the tree and frowned as she watched the three men carefully make their way down the widespread rungs.

“What's going on?” She turned to Jamison and raised the famous eyebrow.

***

Skye didn’t know what she’d expected, but when she’d told Lucas of the connection between herself and their mortal neighbor, he’d said, “Interesting,” and walked away. As he’d passed Jonathan, however, the two had exchanged a look that led Skye to believe the pair weren’t telling her something.

It wouldn’t be appropriate to demand to know their secrets—but she was determined to work it out of Jonathan later.

Skye stood at her bedroom window looking out on the cornfield. She stayed out of sight, as Jonathan had suggested; if someone looked her way, they’d only see curtains.

Sheriff Cooke, a pleasant and patient man for the most part, was proving even more patient than usual, going back over rows that had already been examined and listening to Jamison’s story over and over. Every once in a while, he’d take off his cowboy hat, rub the back of his neck, then pull the hat down tight and start looking again.

Lori Shaw, Jamison’s mother, searched the field too, showing complete trust in her son. When sunlight could no longer illuminate anything more than the tassels, it was Jamison who finally gave up. He must have realized they were all waiting for him to cry uncle.

As his mother followed him inside the house and Lucas walked the sheriff and his deputy back to their vehicles, Skye again wished she could have wept. Jamison had done an incredibly brave thing.

And no one would be allowed to remember any of it in the morning.

She prayed he would at least be able to remember her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jamison woke up the next morning in a fine mood. Today was the day. The moving company had left a message on the machine; his car and the rest of their belongings would be there by five pm.

As he headed down the stairs he paused and looked down. Pants on. Zipper up. What was he forgetting?

Mom was humming. She hadn't done that for a while. Maybe she was going to get over herself and go visit Granddad. He wouldn't bring it up, though. He wanted that humming to last for as long as possible.

Just as he suspected, a cooked breakfast was waiting for him—not something bacon-smelling and micro-waved, but actual bacon. She'd made a greasy mess of the kitchen, and she didn't seem to mind.

“Surprise!” She lifted a pan lid from a plate on the table. Bacon, eggs, and silver-dollar pancakes, like Grandma used to make. “Don't even say how long it's been.”

“I won't look a gift breakfast in the mouth.”

“Good boy.” Mom looked around the table. “What did I forget, butter?”

“Right here.” Jamison pointed to the butter next to his glass.

“Orange juice?”

“Mom! It's in the glass, next to the butter.”

“Sorry, I just feel like I'm forgetting something.”

“Are you wearing pants?”

She looked down. “Yep. Oh well. I guess I'll figure it out the hard way.”

“I'm having that feeling too, like I've forgotten something.”

“Homework?”

“Nothing but a test on Lost Horizon.”

“Lost Horizon! Oh, I haven't read that forever. I wonder how long it will take to dig out that box of books?”

“First thing out is my car.”

“Yep. Last in, first out.”

They had a great morning, smiling and talking about where things would need to go. It was rare; usually they were screaming 'I love you' or 'have a good day' as they ran around the kitchen once and headed for the door. Waking up early was something he'd have to try more often.

They didn't even have to run for the car.

As Jamison pulled up on the door handle, he glanced at the tree house and something nudged his brain.

“How much time have we got?” he asked.

“We're about ten minutes early. Why?”

“I was thinking maybe the thing I forgot is up in the tree house.”

“Well, hurry if you're going. And be careful.” She climbed in the car, then climbed out again. “You know, we might want to think about tearing that thing down.”

“No!” It was his tree house. “Let God blow it over, if he can.”

Half-way up the trunk he had a strong sense of deja vu, like he'd had that thought before, but he was remembering all kinds of things since coming back to Colorado. He’d probably talked it over with Granddad while his mom was packing their things, to leave her home and her father behind.

Jamison had never asked what had happened, why she suddenly hated her dad. He hadn't wanted to hear anything negative about the closest thing to a father he'd ever had. Kenneth Jamison was a great man and his grandson, at the age of eleven, had decided to pretend his mom hated someone else in Flat Springs.

Little did he know it would be the first of many things he would pretend in his life.

Jamison worked his shoulders through the drop door and pulled his legs up into the clubhouse. Magazines littered the floor, their pages warped and yellowed with time and whatever weather made it through the big picture window. He'd climbed up three days before, on the day they'd arrived, more interested in the memories he'd find there than in the ones he'd find in the house. But his mom had called him down, in no mood to unload the car alone. He'd been dying to get back up that ladder ever since.

Of course there was nothing there. He'd left nothing behind three days before. Only looking out that window, over the dry-edged stalks of corn, he felt very close to whatever it was he was forgetting.

“Gimme a break,” he muttered.

As he was about to turn away his eye was caught by something waving at him from the field, just on the other side of the fence, wedged high on one of thousands of cornstalks. It was a paper airplane, made from the page of a weather-warped magazine about the same shade as the drying tassels.

For a second he imagined it was one of the airplanes he and Ray, his boyhood friend, had launched out of that window over five years before, but the second passed and he considered how many times the field had been plowed, planted and plowed under again since the last time they'd ripped and folded those pages.

Someone had been up here, recently. Maybe Ray? Had his friend heard he was returning? Had he come up for old time's sake? Who else would remember about the airplanes?

The neighboring property was now owned by a group of Somerleds, not the Parkers who’d grumbled for years over how many magazines had cluttered their field.

One year they'd spent days getting paper cuts and covering the young corn with a blanket of brightly colored planes, only to be grounded from the tree house for a month, after they'd cleaned up the mess.

Mom honked the car horn and Jamison shook off the memory and the odd feeling of forgetfulness as he scurried down the tree.

What he couldn't forget was to go see his granddad. The old man was more important than the moving van and the things in it, including his ancient Honda.

***

“James! I mean Jamison!” The kid from English waved him down before he made it to the main doors. “Hold up, man. We need to talk before we go in.”

Two other classmates joined them.

“’S up?”

“’S up?” The second kid tried to casually lift his droopy jeans with his wrists. What a dork.

Jamison gave them a quick chin lift.

“Hey, uh, you know how Mr. Evans enjoyed your conversation yesterday?”

Jamison frowned. Enjoyed? He doubted it.

“We were thinking, that if you got the old man talking, he might just forget about giving that test, you know?”

“I don't think a teacher would just forget about a test.” Jamison started to walk around the kid.

“No, dude, he totally would.” One of the others, a Latino, moved to cut him off. “He does it all the time. Mr. Evans likes to talk. If you get him going it will buy us another day.”

Jamison doubted these guys would get any more studying done with another day, but said nothing.

“Fine. I'll try, if I get a chance.”

Satisfied, the three hurried into the building ahead of him.

He hated that; people coming to him for help, probably because he was taller than most. He couldn't complain that he was built like his granddad, but that didn't mean he wanted to be a leader. What he did want was to be left alone—for him and his mom to just be left alone.

Jamison wasn't the only one holding his ears when Announcements came over the PA. Perky voices, from overly dramatic cheerleaders standing too close to the microphone, made everyone wince.

Mr. Evans didn't seem to notice; he was texting. When the bombardment stopped, and hands came away from ears, he looked over his bifocals and jumped, as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. Jamison wondered if anyone ever thought to snag his cell to read those messages.

“Mr. Shaw, I believe you decided we should have a test today on Lost Horizon.”

Jamison suspected the groans around him were designed to stall things. No one really expected to get out of the test, did they?

One look around and he realized that more than just the original three classmates were waiting for him to save their butts.

Crap.

“No sir, Mr. Evans. I don't remember that at all.”

Someone gasped in the back. He turned to see the Somerled girl from next door looking at him. She looked concerned, like she thought he was about to piss off the teacher.

“Have you also forgotten that you claimed to have read Lost Horizon?” Mr. Evans came around to the front of his desk and sat back on it, a copy of the novel in his hands. “Or have you just forgotten what you read? Because let me warn you now, that whether or not you remember one word written by Mr. Hilton, you and your classmates are going to be tested on it today, Mr. Shaw.”

“Well, sir, I'm pretty sure I can answer just about anything. Would you like to try me?” Jamison smiled, daring the man to ask him something in front of witnesses.

Mr. Evans grinned. “Was it Mr. Cloward or Mr. Gardner who told you I like to be distracted by my own voice?”

“I don't know, sir.” Jamison smiled. “Which one is Mr. Cloward?”

The teacher barked out a laugh, not at all insulted that his students knew him well.

“Brownie points for not denying it, I think.” The man began thumbing through the book and paused, briefly reading to himself. “All right, Mr. Shaw. Tell me, who is the coward in this story?”

Jamison tried not to laugh. If anyone was an expert on cowards, it was him.

“Well, I’d say Mr. Conrad’s the biggest coward.”

Mr. Evans’s eyebrows rose. “How so?”

“I think he pretended to prefer wisdom as an excuse to avoid life.”

“Oh, very good, Mr. Shaw. Tell me, did you pay much for your Cliff's Notes?”

“No sir. You can read them online.”

“Oh ho! More points for honesty. Anyone else in this class want points for reading Cliff's Notes?”

Most students raised a hand.

“Well, you don't get any.”

Grunting was unanimous.

“Why shouldn't we get points for reading Cliff's Notes?” Jamison was on a roll. He'd had no intention of doing what the other kids had asked, but this guy was too easy. “After all, studying is studying. And if Cliff's Notes help us understand the crap we have to read, then isn't it a valid source?”

Mr. Evans looked like he didn't want to play anymore. Jamison had to talk fast.

“Okay, how about this? Cliff says Conrad was brave because he didn't fear the unknown, and that Mr. Mallinson was a coward because he feared so much he wanted to get out of Shangri La.”

“And you disagree.”

“Hell—heck yeah, I disagree. I think Mr. Mallinson was the brave one because he was willing to stand up and fight the unknown. He was right to fear it and did something about it. And Mr. Conrad was the coward, like I said.”

“Wait a minute.” The Somerled chick piped up from the back. “You're calling Mr. Conrad a coward because he didn't want to face real life? That's ridiculous. He chose eternal life—well, not eternal, but incredibly prolonged life, anyway. It was a different kind of life, but still—”

“It wasn't real life. There was only one choice to make, to be a coward or not. Two categories. In Lost Horizon or High School, or whatever. Everyone is either one or the other.”

Evans walked to the side of the room and leaned against the wall. “Two categories? Those who fear and those who do not?”

“No, sir. Everyone fears; we just fear different things, but even what we fear doesn’t really matter. There are those who fear and fight, and those who fear and hide.”

“Interesting philosophy, for someone your age, whether you play football or not.” Evans folded his arms. “Be honest. Where did you read it?”

Jamison laughed, then pulled out his finest Scottish Brogue. “I lairnt all I ken sitting at the plaid knee of me Scottish grandsire. If ye’re brave and braw, ye’re a Scot. If ye run and hide, ye’re Anglish. Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, are all decided by where you’re born; North or South of the Border.

Mr. Evans looked long and hard at Jamison, then he looked around at the rest of the students.

“Okay, there is your assignment, children. Write an essay about which you are, one who fears and fights, or one who fears and hides.”

“Mr. Evans?”

“Yes, Mr. Shaw?”

“Why not have a debate instead of an essay? I mean, this is College Prep, and we should learn how to debate our opinions, right?”

“Go on.”

“So, if we just all say which group we are in and why, we wouldn't need to write it down.”

The class went still.

Mr. Evans shook his head. “Is it going to be like this all semester, Mr. Shaw?”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Evans. I'm sure you'll catch up.”

Mr. Evans laughed. “Fine. Miss Phillips, you’re first. If you don't like it, complain to Mr. Shaw.”

Twenty minutes later it was Jamison's turn. He was almost anxious to surprise those idiots who thought he was leadership material.

“I'm a Conrad. I usually choose anything but standing and fighting. I'm a coward.”

Miss Phillips looked like she was going to run over and comfort him.

Evans noticed too, and cleared his throat, probably to distract her. “Not as Scottish as your grandfather, Mr. Shaw?”

“No, sir. I wish I were.”

Jamison resisted turning around to see what affect he'd had on Skye Somerled. He vaguely remembered talking to her in the parking lot the day before but couldn’t remember what they’d talked about. He’d liked her laugh, her soft gloves. He’d caught her lying about sunglasses. When they’d gotten to class the jerk behind him had poked him in the back, warning him that Somerleds didn't date outside their kind, or something like that.

Was that only yesterday?

The confessions went down the line. Most didn't care to join Jamison in the coward club. But when it was time for the last confession, Skye’s, he couldn't help but turn around and watch.

“I'm neither. I fear nothing, so there is no reason to hide or fight.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and lifted her chin.

“Oh ho!” Mr. Evans clapped his hands once. “Miss Somerled has just proven your theory, Mr. Shaw. Did you see? She just chose a side, even though she meant not to. She chose fear and fight. She lifted her chin, ready to take on all comers, didn't she?”

“No, I did not. If there is no reason to fear, there is no reason to fight.” Skye lifted her chin again.

“And yet you are fighting, Miss Somerled.” Evans walked to the board and started writing a mathematical equation, if a, then b or c. “Mr. Shaw’s argument is if there is fear, then there is either flee or fight, agreed?”

The class murmured its agreement.

“And Miss Somerled’s argument is the reverse, but basically means the same thing.” He wrote on the board, if not a, then not b and not c. “If there is no fear, then there is no flee and no fighting. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Most of the class spoke in unison.

Evans faced Jamison. “You were right about one thing, Mr. Shaw; this is turning into an excellent lesson in debate.” He lifted his chalk to the board, writing if b or c, then a. “Follow my logic, if you will. If the first two sentences are correct, if both Jamison and Skye are correct, then it stands to reason that if there is fighting or fleeing, there is fear. Agreed?”

Only a couple kids answered. The class was either a little slow or indifferent.

“So, if Miss Somerled is ready to fight, as implied by the raise of her chin, she must therefore have fear. Agreed?”

Skye was looking at the board, her mouth open, her brow pinched together in confusion.

Jamsion felt bad that his comments had led to this.

Evans slapped the chalk dust from his hands and walked back to his desk. “You make a good argument, Skye. I'll give you a pass for your participation, but I don't buy it, that you have no fear. Everyone fears something.” Evans looked at his cell.

Jamison didn’t want things left that way, with her squirming in the spotlight.

“What about you, Mr. Evans? Which side are you on?”

The man glared at Jamison, then the clock. Still two more minutes.

“I'm the fear and hide type, Mr. Shaw, like you. But I'm getting out of Shangri-La, just as soon as I dare.” He turned to the class. “Tomorrow's discussion will be Wisdom vs. Passion. How old do you think you will be when you do as Mr. Conrad did and exchange the latter for the former—exchange the passion of youth for the wisdom of maturity? I want an essay, not a debate, so be prepared. I recommend reading the classic, Lost Horizon, to get some perspective. If you haven't read it, Mr. Cloward, you should!”

Wisdom over passion? Jamison had settled for wisdom years ago—the wisdom to keep his mouth shut and his head down. Passion, though...passion, for basketball or anything else, only caused pain.

Holy crap, Jamison was as old a fart as the teacher. His wisdom seemed to fade with Skye Somerled around, though. Better to avoid her like the plague.

But that wouldn’t be easy—not with her popping up around every freaking corner.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jamison was fairly certain which direction to take for his next class was, but suddenly she was there. Skye. Odd name. It suited her though.

“Jamison.”

“’S up?”

“I don’t know any better way than to just tell you. It’s about your grandfather.”

He reached out and grabbed her shoulders to steady himself. “What? He’s not...”

“No. Sorry, he’s fine. It’s just that he had a test done a couple of days ago.”

“Yeah, I got there just as they were taking him away.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know if you and your mom were aware.” She bit her lip and looked down, and in that instant...

...the world stopped.

The feeling that he’d forgotten something vanished, like a tooth ache ebbing away as the pain medication kicks in. And Jamison felt unbelievable relief. What if he hadn’t remembered?

But that wasn’t right. He hadn’t forgotten her, really. He’d just forgotten what it felt like to be near her, talk to her, touch her. He suddenly remembered touching her in the parking lot the day before and feeling absolutely...complete. Then he’d run into her at the Recovery Center and been jealous of both her and Granddad, that they had a friendship he had no part in.

He remembered the feeling of an elastic stretching between them, and sensing how far away from him she was whenever he couldn’t see her. How had he let her slip his mind all morning? How had he woken up without her being his first thought? The first image?

He was probably grinning at her like an idiot, but he couldn’t seem to stop. She was fidgeting, noticing other kids noticing them, so he let go of her shoulders and grabbed her hands instead. She wasn’t wearing gloves.

The world lurched, started turning again, like a merry-go-round stopping and starting beneath him, then humming along smoothly. He could have stood there all day looking into her eyes. The hall was emptying and there was no one around to stop him from doing just that.

“Jamison!”

“What?”

“Listen to me.” She tried to pull her hands away, but he held tight.

“I’m listening.”

“Kenneth is going to find out about those test results tomorrow, and if it’s bad news, it would be best for him to have family with him.”

“I’ll be there.”

“I mean, your mom. It might be a really hard day for him, and if your mom could be with him, it might make a huge difference.”

Jamison came out of the Skye haze he’d wandered into. Odd, but he got the feeling she didn’t want him wandering there.

“I don’t know. My mom still hasn’t forgiven him for something. I think she’s trying to work herself up to being able to face him again.”

“Jamison, you have to push her. There may not be time for her to come around on her own.”

He’d been worrying the same thing.

“You have to get her to read the letter.” Skye squeezed his hands, but he doubted she realized it.

“What letter?”

The bell rang. An effeminate teacher walked toward them and cleared his throat like an old librarian subtly telling them to shut the hell up and get to class.

“I’ve got to go. You’ll know the letter when you see it. Just find the letter.” Skye ran off in the opposite direction of his next class.

He hurried to Ballroom Dance, wishing she were in his class so he could hold onto her and get credit for it. They dared to call it an Elective, but in order to call it that, they should let you elect who you had to dance with.

He’d spend as much time with Granddad as he could, then he’d tear the house apart for the letter. And he’d have to do it before it got buried under all that stuff the movers would be unloading that evening.

Crap. He had no room in his schedule for school that day, but he had no choice. If he went to the Recovery Center, Granddad would call him on the carpet for missing school. If he mooched a ride home in the middle of the day, the school would call his mom. It wasn’t like the city; there were so few students in Flat Springs they were easy to keep track of.

And what was it he’d lost track of again? Was it because Skye had gotten away that he once again felt as if he were forgetting something? Had to be. She was gone and the feeling was right back where it started, making him feel like an idiot, like he’d walked into a room looking for something but had forgotten what it was.

Maybe Skye wasn’t the thing he’d lost. Maybe she just made him forget everything when she was around. One thing was certain, though—it was going to drive him crazy until he remembered.

***

Skye’s visit to Kenneth was short. She tried to build his spirits by talking about his grandson, but his side of the conversation lacked his usual attention.

He was worried about the test.

She quit torturing him with her questions and chatter and helped him find something amusing on TV, but as soon as she walked out the door, she heard him turn it off.

Jamison pulled up in his mother’s car as she was walking out. Watching him unfold himself from the driver’s seat was riveting, he moved so smoothly for a tall boy.

“How is he?” Jamison rubbed his hands together then stuck them under his arms.

“Distracted. You know, you might want to give him a few minutes before you go in. He wanted a little peace, I think.”

Jamison looked at the doors, then back at her.

“Should I not go in?”

“Oh, no. I think you should go in, but just give him a minute.”

“Okay.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“It’s cooling off. Come sit in my car.”

“’Kay.”

She turned on the engine and heater. Jamison always looked cold; his shoulders were often pulled up close to his ears, his hands buried under his arms or in his pockets, as if Colorado were more like Alaska when compared to Texas.

He also looked tired.

She knew he hadn’t had much sleep. His bedroom window had been lit up so late she thought he might have fallen asleep with the lights on, or else kept them on out of fear. Just as she’d begun to feel guilty over that, his light had gone off. She’d stopped worrying about him, at least until English, when she was afraid Lucas had tampered with too much of his memory. He said he’d only taken the memories of the ceremony, and all contact Jamison had had with Ray and Burke since he’d returned to Flat Springs. What she’d feared to most was Jamison not remembering her. But so far, so good.

Skye was also aware that Jamison and his mom had likely awakened without a care in the world. Even though it was a nice little mental vacation, a gift even, she disliked the fact Jamison’s mind had been manipulated...along with memories of a half dozen other people last night. As far as she could remember, no clean-up had gone that far before, and it probably could have ended with Jamison had she told the others Jamison was still in the tree house. But whatever the ultimate fall-out over the incident, she couldn’t let it interfere with her assignment.

Skye checked her internal thermometer, then reached for the knob on the car heater. Jamison’s sudden growl made her snatch her hand back before she could turn it down.

His feet stomped, his knees bumped the glove box, and his hands pounded the dash a dozen times. He got some good force behind the fist that slid sideways against the door with a boom, and the violence ended.

“It’s so unfair! I just got him back!”

“It’s all right, Jamie. Really it is.”

His hands started pounding again, as if the car had decided to fight him back, but it ended after a couple of thumps.

Maybe calling him Jamie, as Kenneth did, wasn’t such a hot idea. But it had felt good, like she’d finally pronounced his name right.

When he could catch his breath he muttered, “I’ve had to do without him for five years. I feel so cheated.”

“I’m so sorry.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry for you all. But Kenneth is going to need something from you.”

Jamison turned to face her. “What?”

“The time will come when you’ll have to let him stop fighting.”

“He fights because he’s a fighter.” He faced forward again and glared at the offensive dashboard.

“Maybe he was once. But now he fights for his family. He’ll keep on fighting, even after it’s useless, if you let him. You’re going to have to watch for the time when he should let go. And he’s going to need convincing that you’ll be okay without him.”

“What do I do? Pretend I don’t need him anymore, so he can let go and die? I couldn’t do that. I need him and he knows it.”

“Yes, he knows it. And for now, he needs you too.”

His hand smoothed over the abused leather of the door. “Sorry. I’m not the tantrum type. I promise.”

He’d changed the subject. She took the hint.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a tough car.”

“Yeah. My Honda would have been totaled.” He faced her and smiled. Then he looked at her mouth and the smile dropped away. While she watched in fascination, Jamison’s arm snaked behind her. “I’m so glad you were here.” He gave her a little hug.

She hugged him back, wishing so much to have been able to feel the pressure of it. When he eventually loosened his hold, she looked in his eyes. Their faces were only inches apart. She could almost taste the warmth of his skin.

She’d imagined all kinds of cravings, for all kinds of flavors during her short existence, but never for the taste of someone.

He was looking at her lips so intently she didn’t dare move them. His lashes were incredibly long, golden brown. His nostrils flared suddenly and the entire world tilted with his face as he moved forward. His mouth met hers as smoothly as...breathing.

She focused her conscious thought to the rise and fall of his chest, to his nearness, and she could have wept for her lack of taste in her mouth or sensation in her lips. For the first time, she mourned for the depth of experience lost to her. This wasn’t the smell or feel of peaches, or the taste of corn coming apart in her mouth. This was mortality beneath her hands, against her fingers...and completely out of her reach.

He pulled his arms from around her, put his hands to either side of her face, and looked into her eyes. And suddenly Skye felt ‘seen’ for the very first time. She imagined her true self inside her head, jumping up and down, waving at him, yelling, “hello!”

She was struggling for the right words to say; something cool, something appropriate—anything that wouldn’t ruin the memory of her first, and possibly only, kiss. Very soon, they were going to go through Hell together and then she’d take her place in the circle. Nothing could stop either from happening, but she had this one mortal-esque memory she could take with her.

If she didn’t say the wrong thing now.

Her lips moved. No words came out, but the movement got his attention and he pulled her mouth close and kissed her again. For a moment, she imagined a tingling in her toes. She pulled back and wiggled them, testing. Nothing.

“Sorry.” Jamison dragged his hands slowly off her face, like a blind man, memorizing.

“Please don’t be sorry. I didn’t mind.”

Oh great. She may as well embroider “take me, take me now,” on her shirt. He was probably thinking “easy lips, easy hips.”

He was frowning. “Sorry if I’m not any good. I haven’t kissed much.”

She pulled herself back to her side of the car and looked out the window. No one was gawking through the glass, thank Heavens. A nurse made her way across the parking lot and got into her car.

Wow. Even if she had no sensation and no taste, she still realized what an incredible kisser he was. She’d seen women weep over such kisses, and not in the movies, either. His first serious girlfriend was in for a happy surprise. It shocked her, the sudden understanding she had for women eaten alive with jealousy.

He rubbed his hands on the knees of his jeans. Sweaty palms? Nervous maybe? She needed to acknowledge what he’d said.

“I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you I’ve never kissed anyone before, and even I know that was...staggering.”

His hands stopped moving. He turned to her and grinned.

“Staggering’s good, right?”

“Oh, good. Definitely good.”

She gave in and grinned back.

Eventually, he looked away. “Well, I guess I’d better go see him now.” He flicked the door handle.

“Yeah. He’ll be wondering if you’re coming.”

He wasn’t moving. Did he want a kiss good-bye? Oh, wow. Did she want a repeat of ‘staggering’? Of course she did, but should she? Wouldn’t she just be more upset, being deprived again?

What the heck? She could always go pretend to cry in the field, not that it would give her any relief.

Jamison turned to her quickly, as if he’d just made up his mind. He reached out with one hand and laid it along her neck, his fingers pulling only slightly. She could easily resist.

But she didn’t.

Oh man. She was so going to be spending some time in that field tomorrow!

“Don’t forget the letter,” she whispered against his lips.

“Letter?”

“You need to find the letter and make your mom read it.”

“Oh, that letter.”

She hoped he’d remember. She didn’t even remember him getting out of the car.

CHAPTER NINE

Jamison begged his mom to let him miss school on Wednesday to unload boxes, even though he’d miss seeing Skye and wouldn’t be able to mess with Mr. Evans. He had to find that letter. He couldn’t sit through another day of classes while he could be helping his granddad. He would spend all day with the man if he were allowed to, but finding the letter would be better in the long run.

Because his mom stayed home too, he couldn’t tear the place apart and then put it back together again, so he searched in spurts, between unloading boxes. After only a couple of hours, Jamison was freaking. The house wasn’t large. He’d searched everywhere.

It was getting to be lunch time and his mom hadn’t been making any kitchen noises, so he went looking for her. He found her in the small room off the living room, the one she’d put her desk in. The carpet was orange and yellow retro shag and the light fixture was a milk-glass ball surrounded by white wrought-iron swirls. The walls were covered with small yellow and white squares that had always seemed cheerful; now it all looked like a Hippie hate-crime. It almost took away his appetite.

Almost.

“Hey, are we going to eat?” He stopped and stared.

Mom was crying. She never cried; she knew what it did to him.

“What’s going on? Don’t cry, Mom. What is it?” He hurried to her side, feeling his body gear up for horrible news. “Is something wrong with Granddad?”

“Sorry, honey. Everything’s fine. I’m just getting old. Old people cry over stupid stuff.”

Jamison looked at the papers in front of her. A pile of bills, a pile of stamped mail ready for the post office, and some legal documents.

“That Granddad’s will?”

“Yeah. I’m not ready to read it, though.” She shoved it all back in the fancy folder and tossed it in the top middle drawer. She might not be ready, but ready wasn’t far away.

Then he saw it. The letter. It had to be.

“What’s this?” He snatched it up before his mom could stop him. “It’s addressed to you, in Texas.” He moved to the other side of the desk and sat down, ignoring his mom’s outstretched hand, holding it easily out of her reach. “You wrote ‘return to sender’ on it? Why?”

“I was very angry with him, and you know it. It’s why we left.” She put her elbows on the desk and bracketed her face with her hands, pushing back her hair, but still hiding her face.

“This is dated—uh, that would be—six months after we left. I thought he didn’t know where we were. You said that’s why I never got any letters, because he couldn’t find us, because you didn’t want him to.”

“Yes. I didn’t want him to.” She slammed her hands down on the desk and reached again for the letter.

“And did he? Did he send letters to me?” He ignored her hand.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes.”

Jamison let the pain wash over him. Invisible. Invisible.

He couldn’t look at her.

“I’m sorry. At least I didn’t let you think it was because he didn’t care. I didn’t take that away from you. I just took you away from him.”

“I should have asked,” he muttered to himself. He hadn’t asked because he didn’t want to hear something he couldn’t handle. Now Jamison knew, no matter what his granddad had done, he wouldn’t love him any less. It wasn’t possible.

“You should have asked what, if he was sending letters?”

“No.” He looked at her then and had the same knowledge hit him again. No matter what she’d done, what poor choices she’d made, he wouldn’t love her any less.

Now the only thing to do was to get these two back together, the two people he loved, the two people he’d like to beat senseless.

“I should have asked what he’d done to make you angry enough to leave and never come back.” He leaned forward. “I’m asking you now.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re back. You can spend as much time with him as you can, as much time as he has left.” A tear ran down her cheek, but Jamison wasn’t dishing out pity.

“It does matter. I’m going to read this letter—”

“No—”

“—and you can’t stop me. So, would you like to explain before I do?”

His mom glared at him. He didn’t care.

She tipped back in her chair and he thought she wasn’t going to answer him, but she started playing with the stack of envelopes and talking in that odd voice a mother uses when reading a bedtime story, as if she hopes the kid would fall asleep before she had to read the whole thing.

“I got pregnant at seventeen. Before you were ever born, your dad left me. Actually he left two days after the wedding at the courthouse and never came back to Flat Springs. Your granddad took me back home, said at least Shaw had given my child a name and that any man who could leave a pregnant wife was doing her a favor by going.”

“You’ve told me this before.”

“Hush. You asked, now shut up until I’m through.”

Jamison sat back in his seat.

“We got along just fine. You were happy, so I was happy, and that was enough for me then. I believed I could find love after you were older, but I always hoped...I hoped that Mickey would have a life-altering experience and come running back. I suppose I hoped for that harder than I realized. I guess I was counting on it.

“So, eleven years went by and no Mickey. Momma died. So young—she was so young! A girl is never the same after her mother dies, you know?”

“Yeah. I know. I think a boy is never going to be the same when his grandfather dies. You know?”

“Yeah. I know.” She seemed to shrink a bit then, as if the guilt of that realization was more that she could face and still get the story out.

“Go on.”

“Momma died. Daddy was a mess. Momma had always done the bills and the legal stuff. I was a paralegal by then and offered to take care of things, and when I went through boxes of documents I found a letter, from Mickey, to me.

“Oh, God!” She started sobbing. “I did the same thing to you that they did to me! But at the time, it felt like I was doing it to him, you know? It didn’t occur to me I was hurting you. You were always so...fine. I never had to worry about you.”

Little did you know. So much he could tell her, but what good would it do?

“So, what did Mickey say?”

“He said he wanted to see his child—he didn’t even know you were a boy. He said since my dad had paid him to leave me, that maybe the old money-grubber would let him see his kid if he refunded some of his money.

“I don’t know why my mom kept the letter. If she was worried that she might need to contact him sometime, she could’ve just saved his address. But I felt like she was leaving it for me, so I’d know what really happened. I thought she was so devoted to Dad, but maybe she was just pretending to be.

“Anyway, I got all the paperwork done that needed doing, for her sake, then I packed up our stuff and we left. I left Mickey’s letter on the counter, so he’d know why.”

She sat there, her face moving while she stared off at a corner of the orange and yellow shag carpet, as if she were reviewing it all again, looking for some detail she might have missed.

Jamison’s stomach rumbled and she came back from wherever she’d been.

“Yes, we’re going to eat today. I’ll find us something.” She stood up.

“And I’ll read this while you’re looking.” He waved the blue envelope and she sat back down.

“It’s not yours to read, Jamison Shaw.”

“Oh? I think if you’ve disowned him, that makes him only my relative, and this is from my relative, not yours.”

“Damn it, Jamie. Hand me that letter!”

“No. Unless you agree to read it.”

She stood up and left the room. Soon she was slamming things around in the kitchen, and Jamison had been well-trained to come running, to help clean up or cook or whatever, any time he heard those noises. But not this time.

He used a small pair of scissors to slice open the seal. It was yellow and crusted with five-year-old spit and glue. Unfolding the blue stationary with lighthouses in the corners, Jamison was disappointed to find the letter very short with large letters taking up space.

Dear Lori,

I caught Mickey in Parker’s barn the day after your wedding, in the arms of Parker’s wife. He laughed and offered to leave Colorado for good if I’d loan him the money to do it. I gave him enough to see him to Hell.

I wanted to spare you a bad marriage, aye? Would you not have done the same?

I love you. I won’t last long without the sight of you.

Forgive me.

Da

In spite of all the letter said, of the questions answered not to mention the father issues, the letter raised one silly question in Jamison’s mind:

Where did Skye fit in?

CHAPTER TEN

Jamison read the letter aloud, following his mother around the kitchen while she slammed things around, pretending not to listen. Finally, when his mother dissolved into tears, he handed her the little blue page and a wad of unused tissue and went to his room. He figured she’d be ready to go to the Recovery Center in about an hour or so.

There were still a few things of his grandmother’s in his room; a housecoat on the back of the door, a fishing pole mounted above the window, and a strange little table next to the bed. She used to keep old Harlequin romances in the drawer. He’d tossed the books, but the table was all right staying. The bed, finally, was his own.

The housecoat had to go, and as he was taking it off the hook, his eye caught on an envelope propped up against the blue and silver drum that had served as his piggy bank for as long as he could remember. He might have never noticed the envelope if he hadn’t been so recently obsessed with finding a mysterious letter.

He draped the quilted housecoat on the back of his desk chair, taking a second to feel the satiny fabric his grandma had been so fond of. He remembered finding her in her bedroom one day lying on the floor in her pajamas, laughing her head off.

“Watch this, Jamie,” she’d said to him. Then, wearing her satin pajamas, she stepped back into the corner, then ran and jumped on her massive bed, sliding across the tricot sheets, and with no friction to stop her, landed again on her butt.

She hadn’t repeated the trick, claiming that she’d never walk again if she did, but the two of them had laughed for a week, every time their eyes met.

Jamison smiled. He’d been so worried about his granddad he hadn’t spared much time thinking about Grandma. If she were alive his life would have gone happily along as it should have.

Strange. He didn’t remember writing on that envelope, but it was his handwriting, only it was more legible than usual. And there was something heavy inside.

To be opened if something happens to me.

He would have laughed, but then he remembered Texas. He could very well have written something four years ago and forgotten about it. But knowing that he was safe now, that it was all behind him, he didn’t want to open it. He didn’t want to know what the lump was, or relive any of it. He was home. Life was going to be tough enough. He didn’t need any more grief—even old grief.

He dug through a green metal tackle box, another one of Grandma’s treasures he’d decided to hang onto for a while. There was an old Bic lighter she’d kept handy for when she wanted to melt a good and tight knot on a fishing line.

He flicked the lighter and a healthy flame jumped to attention, like a genie, happy to finally be let out of the box. That’ll work.

He pulled out the mesh garbage can and held the letter above it, then flicked the Bic again. This time the genie was hungry and made quick work of the envelope. Unlike his mother’s old letter, this one wasn’t discolored and crusty, or at least not until the flame aged it, liking its way along one side, the blackened edge rolling along behind the fire, begging for more attention.

The fire went out, but the envelope was only half gone.

He flicked again, starting with the lower corner, and the flame jumped to do its duty again, to eradicate the entire state of Texas. About a quarter of the envelope was left, the corner he’d been holding.

He shifted his fingers to the very tip and flicked the Bic again, and the heavy lump slid out and landed in the bottom of the garbage. With nothing but a few carbon curls to cushion its fall, the clank was loud.

Jamison frowned at it for a minute. For the life of him he couldn’t remember ever making a tape recording. The only mini tape recorder he’d ever seen was the one in his granddad’s ‘odd things’ drawer. He’d poked his nose in that drawer the day they’d arrived, looking for old treasures. There’d been no computer to play on, so he’d killed some time looking through the ridiculous stuff the old man hadn’t been able to toss in the trash, or rubbish bin, as Granddad called it.

A powerful magnet, a slingshot, and the mini recorder were rescued; the rest got dumped. Maybe the old house was ready to let go of the past, like Jamison was.

He looked at the three items now taking up space on what might soon be called his ‘odd things’ shelf.

That was so stupid. If he’d made a recording in the last couple of days he certainly wouldn’t have forgotten it. Would he?

He got that fish-flapping-in-the-stomach feeling. Hadn’t he felt all day yesterday like he’d forgotten something? Had he forgotten a tape?

Jamison moved to the wall behind his closed door, backed up against it, and slowly slid down to the floor.

Breathe.

He breathed.

Think.

He didn’t want to think. He’d rather throw up. If the message on the envelope wasn’t written in Texas, then whatever was on that tape might be as bad as what happened four years ago. Only something bad would have made him write that kind of note.

Maybe he didn’t want to know.

Maybe it wasn’t his handwriting.

Maybe he should use that Bic one more time. If it was ruined, there’d be no going back. No knowing.

Holy crap. It would drive him crazy.

Breathe.

He breathed.

He’d toyed with the idea of asking his mom if he could see a therapist. Lots of people, normal people—well, normal-ish people—saw therapists. Now he wished he would have asked her. What he was really afraid of, was that he’d left it too late, that he’d pretended too much for too long, and now the transmission in his brain was slipping.

It was a long time before he moved a muscle or a brain cell. When he stood, he tried not to think. He wasn’t going to make the choice; he’d just see what his body decided.

He watched calmly as his hand took the mini-recorder off the shelf. His legs took him back to the garbage can and he wondered if he was going to trash the recorder, but his other hand scooped out the tape. His mouth blew black bits of ash out of the two little holes. His finger pushed a button and the machine opened. A thumb pushed the tape into the hole.

He pushed rewind but the button popped back up. Maybe someone had already rewound it. It took a couple of minutes before he could push play, but his body had gotten him that far. He could at least do that much.

“Okay, seriously. If I, Jamison Shaw, turn up dead or missing, or if the sheriff tells you I’ve been taken out of state for drug rehab, don’t believe it.”

He pushed stop. He wasn’t dead or missing. Technically he could stop listening. His stomach churned, letting him know it voted to run away. But if he really wanted to put Texas behind him, running away wasn’t the way to do it.

He crawled on his bed and scooted to the wall, then settled back against it. Again, he pressed play, but his thumb rested on the stop button in case his mom came in. His eerie voice was hushed, so he turned it up a little.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen now, so I’m making this tape, just in case. I only hope the Somerleds don’t get a hold of it. And if you’re listening, you murderers, you stay away from my mom or so help me...

“If you’re not a Somerled, then this is what has happened since I moved back to Flat Springs on Friday...

Jamison listened. Of course the voice sounded like him, but it freaked him out the way it freaked out anyone who listened to themselves. But hearing it on a recording he didn’t remember making was jacked up. He was jacked up, and by the time he got to the end of the recording, he was pretty sure his whole life was permanently jacked up.

His mom pounded on his door and he nearly shat his pants.

“Jamie, honey?” She cracked the door open and lowered her voice. “I’m going to go down to the Recovery Center in about an hour. Do you want to come with me?”

He was on auto-pilot

“Y..yeah. I mean, no. I mean, if you can be nice, I’ll let you go without me. He’s going to be getting some test results back today, and if it’s bad news, um, he’ll be glad you’re there.”

“What kind of test?” She finally looked at him. Her eyes were swollen, her mascara gone. Anything he said would turn the water works back on.

“To see if the cancer is responding to the treatments.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She flew across the hall. “I’m leaving in five minutes if you’re coming.” She slammed her bedroom door.

Of course he wanted to witness the reunion, but a tearful reunion? Not so much. Of course he wanted to find out the test results, to be there for Granddad if they weren’t good, or to celebrate if they were. But he needed a quiet hour to wrap his head around the story he’d just told himself.

Then he’d need another couple hours to figure out what to do with the murderer he’d been kissing the night before.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Skye wished she could throw up, but since she didn't have the equipment for it, she could only stand in the cold linoleum hallway and marvel at the war of emotions raging in her empty chest.

He'd done it. Jamison had gotten his mother to come!

She was disappointed he hadn't tagged along, not because she might have gotten a chance for another kiss, so she told herself, but so she could ask him how the miracle had been accomplished.

She was so happy for Kenneth. He'd been mourning more than the loss of his wife for the last five years, he’d been mourning the loss of his entire family. Too bad it had taken cancer to reunite them. And too bad the day he’d want to celebrate had also come on the heels of the worst news possible.

She could tell, the day before, that Kenneth had been expecting the test results to be bad. Even with the excitement of his family returning to Flat Springs, and the hope for his daughter’s forgiveness, he must have been able to tell that his body had been continuing its decline.

Skye had no experience with such things, of course, but she imagined one's mortal body communicated with the mind in some way, letting a person know that something was not functioning as it was designed to.

She'd allowed him some space the day before so he could also communicate with his spirit, and his God. There was nothing more she could have done for him at a time like that, other than urge Jamison to do what Skye could not—push Kenneth’s daughter back into his arms so they could console each other.

Eavesdropping outside Kenneth's room, Skye had heard enough to know that the father and daughter would forgive each other for the past and move on to more urgent matters. She backed away, hoping no one would mention that she'd been there. Tomorrow was soon enough to visit Kenneth again, to let him know she'd been thinking about him and his test and if he chose, to let him share a bit of his happy reunion.

As she hurried past the nurse's station she whispered “don't look up” into the minds of the two women seated before monitors. She had the silly thought that if Jamison wasn't around to see her, she didn't want to be seen by anyone.

She climbed into her car but didn't turn it on. The last person to sit in the passenger seat was Jamison. She relived every detail of her conversation with him, every detail of his lips, every word, every blink. She remembered how high his shoulders hit on the back of the seat, how far he’d leaned down to...

Why hadn't he come? Was he so considerate of his mother that he'd sacrifice a moment with his granddad for her sake? She would have thought he would at least want to see the man after giving the two some time together.

Maybe he waited in his mom's car!

She searched the parking lot and noticed the blue Mazda across the way. Empty.

Maybe he was coming later.

She considered how long she might reasonably stay and watch for him. Did he have a car? Would he welcome a ride? Had he changed his mind about coming and was wishing someone would stop by, maybe in a green Beemer, and ask if he wanted a lift to his local assisted living center?

She was getting used to the way her thoughts skidded and banged around in her head like cars in a demolition derby. One of these days, she wouldn’t remember what she was like before this assignment. But this assignment was nearly over.

When Kenneth finished with his human state, she’d be taking her place in the center of the circle and never see Jamison again. Jamison, who she loved—no, who she liked kissing. Once she entered the circle, of course, all thoughts of kissing would be over in less than a mortal second.

Would she go back to the way she had been? Would she want to? Would she have a choice in the matter? It was a pity that every time she traveled through the veil her memories were affected. On the other side, she remembered all. On the mortal side, she had fragments of past assignments, no more. If she were to be assigned near Marcus again, they would barely remember each other. Jamison, she wouldn’t remember at all.

She should welcome the relief from the emotional storm. She didn’t. She mourned the loss of them and they weren’t even gone yet.

When she got home tonight, would Jonathan be able to read her? Would he know how much time she'd spent thinking about Jamison, missing his nearness at school, wishing he would suddenly stop her in the hall with his hands on her shoulders, slipping them down her arms to link his bare fingers with hers? How much she ached to have felt it all the first time?

Would Jonathan tell Lucas all he sensed? But more still, would Jonathan understand what was happening to her and be able to help her through it? Would he or Lucas be able to restore her peace?

Skye’s hand froze, the key halfway inside the ignition.

What was wrong with peace? Peace was the prize, after all. Wasn’t it?

Without risking another thought down that road, she started her engine and squealed out of the parking lot, headed for home, to run headlong into the peace that awaited her...in her room, where Jonathan wouldn't find her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I don’t know what time I’ll be home tonight. They’re lighting a bonfire, for Homecoming.” Jamison pecked his mom on the cheek and headed for the door.

“Okay, I’ll try not to worry. Don’t get too close.”

Jamison froze. “To whom?”

His mom laughed. “To the fire. Don’t get too close to the bonfire.” She set down her coffee cup, frowning. “What about Daddy? He missed you last night.”

It was so weird, hearing her call him Daddy again, after all these years.

“I’ll be over to see him, I promise. There might be plenty of stuff going on later and I didn’t want you waiting up for me, you know?”

“Fine. I’ll probably stay late and watch TV with him. You know, like we would at home.” She got up and grabbed a tissue. “Go.”

“Loveyoubye!” He pecked her on the cheek again and tried not to think that it might be the last chance he’d ever have. Who knew what kind of hell he’d have to pay for what he was planning to do.

So much to do, so little time.

Jamison tried to look casual and bored as he walked into English class. He didn't want Skye to think it was anything other than a normal day.

Morning announcements were hard to hear over the chaos in the room; Mr. Evans was late.

“Everyone please come,” the kid on the PA pled. “The bonfire will be lit in the field to the West of the auditorium. And then we'll be watching a movie inside right after.”

Jamison looked at Skye and forced a smile. She looked relieved and smiled back. Since few other students were in their seats, he stood and moved to the back of the room and when he leaned against the wall, Skye turned in her seat, to face him.

“You are coming tonight, aren't you? To the bonfire?” He slid down the wall to sit on the floor. To most of the class it would just look like Skye was facing the empty rear of the classroom. “Please say you're coming.”

“I'll think about it.” Skye fidgeted with the tassel of her scarf.

“Oh, don't tell me you won't be allowed to come.” He leaned forward and grabbed her scarf, pulling it slowly from around her neck while looking into her eyes, daring her to stop him, daring her to say she'd come.

“I'm allowed.” She blushed, probably trying to think of everything else she was allowed to do. But surely, if the Somerleds condoned blowing people up, they'd condone just about anything.

“Good. Can you meet me there? I have to drive Granddad's truck over, with some old barn wood for the fire.”

“Yes. I'll meet you there.”

“Going to the Recovery Center today?”

“Yeah. I need to.”

“Me too. Maybe I'll see you there.” Jamison rolled up the scarf and tucked it into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. “I'll give it back if you come tonight.” Then he winked at her and made his way back to his seat.

Step one: get her scarf.

Step two: get her to come to the bonfire.

Check and check.

***

Mr. Evans walked in as the announcements wrapped up.

The kid behind Jamison poked him in the back and leaned forward.

“I heard he got called into Mr. Forbes's office this morning. He's busted. Been dating a student, if you know what I mean.”

“If that were true, he wouldn't be here this morning, would he?” Jamison rolled his eyes at the kid and turned forward again.

Rumors like that were never true. Some chick might have complained about Mr. Evans because he was too rude, or made her look stupid in front of her friends, but if she wanted to be believed, she should have come up with something else. The guy was 55 or 60. Students who dated teachers went for the young ones, not fossils with all white hair.

“Children? I hope you at least reviewed the notes of Jamison's friend, Cliff. Use as many pages as you'd like, and capitalizing on the rest of the class period, please write an essay explaining how old you expect to be when you decide wisdom, or something similar, will become more important to you than passion.

“And I don't mean only physical passion, Miss Phillips. I mean passion for life, passion for your dreams, passion for business, perhaps. Passion of any kind. Poetry. Art. Music. Science. There are some among you who might have a passion for mathematics, or gambling.

“Just how long do you see yourself holding on? How bad must your arthritis get before you choose a pain-free day over picking up your violin? How many months or years might go by without you noticing the passion is gone? Will you even care? Maybe you've already let something go, Mr. Shaw.”

He winked and Jamison and continued his rant.

“If sacrifice is giving up something good for something better, when do you think the balance will shift? When will that pain-free day sound better than the music?

“I can see Mr. Cloward getting his hopes up. Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm done talking. Start writing. Don't forget to tie in our beloved novel, Lost Horizon. Compare your prediction with what you have learned about Mr. Conrad or Mr. Mallinson.”

For Jamison it was fairly easy; he wrote about Granddad. That man was born with wisdom; he didn't need to give up his passions for it. He wouldn't have stayed in Shangri-La, he would have fought hard to get back home to his wife, his daughter and his grandson. He wouldn't have accepted any substitute for family. Kenneth Jamison was the fear and fight kind. He would have never cowered in Texas, no matter what he'd faced. He’d been John Freaking Wayne; he'd have found a way to fight.

For the first time, Jamison wrote about what happened deep in the heart of the Yellow Rose State. It didn't matter if it earned him a better grade or not, he just had to write it.

He dragged his feet, letting the rest of the class file out before he turned in his paper.

“Mr. Evans?”

“Mr. Shaw?”

“I can't give you my paper unless you promise to give it back. And you have to promise to keep what I've written to yourself. No one can be helped by it, and a few can be hurt.”

Mr. Evans's brows came together. “I'm sure it's not my place to stick my nose where it doesn't belong.”

“Thank you.” He stapled the pages together and handed them over.

“And Jamison?”

“Yeah?”

“If I can't...if I can't return it personally, I'll destroy it. All right with you?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“You have my word.”

Jamison nodded and left. That guy was friggin' weird.

Attend first period. Check.

***

Second period Jamison drove home. He hauled a pallet and some long ropes from the old shed and headed for the tree house. He was whistling the Irish Washerwoman's song, his granddad’s favorite, so it took some time to realize someone was calling out to him.

“Ho! Young Kenneth!”

Jamison took a deep breath and turned. Lucas was standing on something on the other side of the fence, the top of the boards hitting him around the waist of his white work clothes.

Jamison smiled a neighborly smile and didn't allow himself to think a hostile thought. “Oh, hello.”

“Good morning, young Kenneth.”

“Actually, I go by Jamison. I leave 'Kenneth' for my grandfather.”

“Well, then, hello young Jamison.”

“Hello. You Marcus?”

“No. Marcus moved to another farm. I'm called Lucas.”

“Nice to meet you.” Jamison took his hand off the ropes on his shoulder and gave a little wave before turning away.

“Is there something I could help you do, young Jamison?”

He turned, smiling. Shrugging the rope-ladden shoulder, he lifted that Ken Jamison eyebrow. “I guess I could use a little help, but can you spare the time?”

“I'm between projects, you could say.” Lucas jumped the fence and his large body landed lightly on odd leather boots. “What is it you mean to do with all this?”

“Well, this may sound silly, but I was thinking that old tree house might be a little too dangerous to have around. I can't quite bring myself to tear it down, but I thought if I boarded it up kids won't be tempted to climb up, you know?”

“That doesn't sound silly a'tall. What do we do first?”

“Well, there's all this wood, from the old pig shed. I thought I should haul up what I'll need into the clubhouse, then I can take the rest of it to the bonfire at the school tonight. Then I can get credit for cleaning up the pile of wood.”

“A sound plan. And maybe some money in your pocket?”

Jamison grinned. “Absolutely.”

An hour went by swiftly with Jamison keeping his mind clear of anything but the task at hand. If he could pull off being this close to Lucas without arousing suspicion, the rest of his plans would be do-able.

With a pallet, a pulley, and the help of a man obviously gifted in the strength department, Jamison was able to get plenty of wood up into the tree house. No mention of school was made until lunchtime arrived.

“Would you like to come inside and I'll make us some lunch?” He turned toward the house.

Lucas took off his work gloves and dusted off his still-white pants. “No, but thank you. My lunch will be waiting for me at home. How is it, young Jamison, that you are not in school today?”

“Oh, that. Well, I went to English, to take a test, but they cut me some slack so I could collect wood for the bonfire.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Yeah, anything for Homecoming.”

“And how is your grandfather?”

The need for smiles disappeared.

“He's not doing too good right now. They’re going to decide whether or not to try a different treatment. The last thing they did didn't work.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don't want him in pain, but I can't stand to see him stop fighting. Lots of people beat cancer, right? So why not him?”

“Yes, why not indeed.” Lucas started to walk toward the road, to walk around the end of the fence. “I think he's lucky to have you, son. I'm very glad you and your mother came back.”

After lunch it was quick work to nail boards across all the windows of the clubhouse. The drop door was a little tricky; he pounded old gray boards across the door without actually nailing the door shut. From the ground, however, it screamed “no access.”

With a chainsaw, starting at the top, he cut the center out of all the ladder rungs while trying not to give the old trunk new wounds. About six or eight inches of wood still surrounded each railroad spike. If asked, he would explain that to take the spikes out would be not only difficult, but would shock the tree. But with the greater portion of each rung missing, it would take a rock climber to get to the tree house, and then they couldn't get in.

Step 4. Check.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jamison drove the pickup to the Recovery Center and asked if he might take his granddad for a ride. A short while later, and with an IV hanging from an old rifle rack, the two struck out for parts unknown. The nurses had tried to dissuade them, but once Jamison had suggested it, Granddad's mind was set.

Only the large grumpy nurse, whose bark was much worse than her bite, had the balls to dress down the Scotsman all the way to the truck. Right before they'd driven away, however, she'd winked at Jamison with a teary eye, then threatened to call the police if he didn't have the old coot back in an hour or so.

His granddad waved the woman closer, digging in his pocket. “I’ve got something for you, Madame.” When he pulled out his hand, his middle finger was raised and he waved it at her.

Jamison sped away before the silly Scot could come up with another insult, and in the rear view mirror he watched the big woman bend over, laughing.

Granddad cleared his throat. “That's no way to treat a woman, me boy.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Nurse Harmon is no woman. She's my auld drill sergeant, painted wi’ lipstick and dressed in his sister's knickers.”

Granddad’s laughter was loud and rude, as if it, too, had been saved in that shirt pocket for a chance at some air.

A few minutes later, after the man caught his breath, they settled into a comfortable silence and listened to the sound of the old engine.

“I spent many a year of me life in this trook. ‘Twas a grand idea, goin' for a ride.” Granddad rolled down the window. He struggled, and it took him a good minute, but it looked like he didn’t want help. When the old clouded glass was finally down, he leaned out to face the breeze, smiling into the sunlight that felt anything but warm to his driver.

“I'm taking a load of wood over to the school,” Jamison hollered, “for the Homecoming Bonfire.”

The old man pulled his head back in, looked into the truck bed and laughed. “That the wood from the auld pig shed?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that will make for a fair pungent fire, laddie, if'n the rain and snow from last season didn’t wash the away the stink.”

It didn’t take long to get to the school. Granddad grinned and waited patiently while the ominous wood was unloaded. Next, they rolled around town, talking about townspeople Jamison barely remembered, or pretended to remember. At last, the talk turned to Grandma and what the couple had planned to do when they’d retired.

“What seriously pissed her off was dying just before the retirement checks were to start. If someone could stay alive out of spite, she'd have done it.”

It seemed as if thoughts of Grandma drained his energy faster than anything else and Jamison turned back toward the Recovery Center. The big woman was standing there with her hands on her hips, as if she hadn’t taken a step while they’d been gone. She whistled and two men came outside, one pushing a wheelchair.

“Drive around the car park once, me boy, just to piss in her tea.”

Jamie did what he was told. His grandfather giggled the whole time.

“Thank ye for the adventure, Jamie lad.”

“You're welcome, Granddad.” Jamison grabbed the man’s arm before he could open the door. “I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to do it a hundred times.”

Granddad looked at him for a long minute, then his eyes got wet. “Sometimes, son, one good ride is worth a hundred others.”

All the way to the mall, Jamison fought to swallow the boulder in his throat. This was no day for emotion.

Step 5. Check, damn it.

***

Jamison had cash. No one would trace his purchase, and if the guy at the counter had been sober enough to remember any specific customer that afternoon, it would have been the blue-haired, nose-pierced, tattooed thirty-year-old-trying-to-look-eighteen who was standing in line behind him.

Besides, the store had been dim. Other than his blond hair, there was really nothing memorable about him, or his purchase, compared to the raunchy stuff everyone else was there to buy. Thankfully, Jamison looked a bit older than he was and the wasted employee hadn't asked for ID.

Step 6. Check.

The list was a great idea. Not only did it keep him from forgetting anything, it kept his head clear; there was no need to keep reviewing things he'd already worked out. He only needed to do everything as planned. An added benefit was that it kept him calm enough to choke down some food. The last thing he needed was for his stomach to growl at the wrong moment, or his strength to give out.

While pounding down a Big Carl and fries, he drove around town, looking for the right sucker to help him with step seven. It was just after four—plenty of time to walk if necessary—but he'd rather stick to the plan.

He was about to give up and head back to scour the mall parking lot for the second time, when he spotted her.

Miss Phillips from English class. Alone. Coming out of the old-fashioned music store.

Granddad's truck wasn't the sexiest vehicle, but it would have to do. Jamison pulled up behind her car and rolled down, by hand, a very unsexy window.

“Miss Phillips, I presume.”

She spun around and smiled. “Mr. Shaw, as I live and breathe. The Southern gentleman who is so humble he believes himself to be a coward.” She prowled over to the truck as seductively as any Southern belle, clutching her bag in both hands.

He realized she was pushing her boobs together on purpose. Interesting.

“It's not humility, Miss Phillips. It's honesty.”

“Uh huh.” She dropped the Southern belle act. “Can you believe that crap? Calling us Miss Phillips and Mr. Shaw? I think he does it so we'll think he's cool, like he thinks we're all just adults, sitting around shooting the breeze. As if.”

“I don't know. At least his class hasn't been boring. Yet. But I've only been in it a couple of times.”

“Well I heard,” she leaned on his open window, “that Mr. Evans likes to date eighteen-year-olds. My friend heard that Mr. E calls lots of his old students after they graduate. To. Hang. Out! Can you imagine? He's like almost 60!”

Again, Jamison toyed with the thought of getting his hands on Mr. E’s cell phone. Maybe it was watching a man his age so into texting that made something seem...off about the guy. If he was texting young girls, that was sick, as in...sick.

Suddenly Jamison wished he could keep Mr. E from reading his essay from that morning.

Ew, and he so did not want to be calling him Mr. E!

Someone honked.

“I gotta move.” He started rolling away and Miss P backed up, no doubt preparing to pounce on him as soon as he was parked.

Sure enough, as soon as the pickup stopped moving, she was back at his window.

“Miss Phillips?”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell is your name?”

She laughed. “Rachel.”

“Well, Rachel. I need a big favor, and I thought you might have the time to help me.”

“Oh, anything. Really.”

And he believed her. Really.

Step 7. Check and then some.

***

Step eight was easy enough. After he pulled the pickup under the carport of the shed, he ducked inside the tack room and shut off the breaker for the yard lights. When night came, the lights wouldn’t come on automatically, as they usually did. No one would notice, though; they'd just think the night was unusually dark, or so he hoped. He and his mom had turned them off plenty of times for star-gazing, and it was always days later, after a couple of comments about how dark it was outside, that someone would remember to turn the yard lights on again.

***

It was early yet when Jamison arrived back at the school. All the student-officer-sweatered kids were delicately building up the wood for the bonfire. Even from the parking lot he could hear one young man giving orders, reminding the others that since he was an Eagle Scout and knew more about fires than they ever would, they'd better do just as he said or they'd be sitting around trying to get the damned thing lit all night. Another kid shouted he had lighter fluid and wouldn't let that happen and the struggle for dominance was on.

Jamison walked to the bleachers, out of earshot, and sat down to wait.

It was going to be a long night. He wished he could take a nap, there on the cold aluminum seats, but he didn't want to wake up frozen to death, or miss Skye. If she came and couldn't find him, she might take off and jack up all his plans.

It didn't matter if those idiots got the fire started or not, it only mattered that she showed. There was no other chance. It had to be tonight. Who knew how long it would be before he woke up with his memory wiped out again? Even now he feared waking up to the smell of real bacon cooking. Maybe bacon would scare the shit out of him for the rest of his life.

Pity, that, his granddad would say.

Pity, all of it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lucas, I’m going to the Homecoming Bonfire.” Sky reached for her keys.

“Is that wise?”

“I have no idea. I need to have Jamison’s trust. I assume that doing teenage activities with him will earn me that trust.”

“No reason for him not to trust you already. We eliminated his suspicions.”

“True. But he’s also surprised us. I’d rather be sure.”

“It is your call to make. You still have the odd awareness of him?”

“I do. I still don’t understand it.”

“Ours is not to question.” Lucas nodded sagely.

“I try not to.”

“Don’t give him reason to suspect you again...if possible. That is all the advice I have.” Lucas dropped his hands from his hips, a sure sign the conversation was over.

“I may be quite late.”

“Time is a mortal concern.” Lucas waved away her comment.

“Just staying in character.”

“Oh, all right, then.” Lucas lowered his brow and propped his fists on his hips. “Don’t let me catch you sneaking in here at four in the morning, young lady.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

She kissed him on the cheek and laughed her way out the door. That had been easy, but she supposed she hadn’t really expected much of an argument. As far as the general population knew, they were mild mannered eco-nuts, not polygamists. If a Somerled teen was out past dark it didn’t mean he or she would be cast out of their society.

Skye tried to control her imagination as she drove off. Her foot tended to lay a bit heavy on the gas pedal, even when she was in no hurry. Time, as Lucas had just reminded her, was a mortal concern, but when her tasks involved mortals, time was also a concern of hers.

If she was late for the bonfire, would he leave? Would another girl distract him? Was he as easily distracted as many other boys in their school?

Oh, here comes the mental demolition derby again.

She tried to pay attention to the speedometer. Already she was well over the limit. She lifted her foot, but by the time the car reacted there were red and blue lights flashing in her rear view mirror.

Wonderful. She’d be even later, and the sun was also speeding—toward the horizon.

“Give me a warning,” she whispered into the mind of the deputy as he walked up to her window.

“Wow, Skye Somerled. Surprise, surprise.”

“Sheriff Cooke?” She smiled her coyest smile and added a blush just in case.

“How many warnings have I given you, honey?”

“Some.”

“Oh, now don’t try to lie. How many?”

As if she could lie!

“More than a few. Less than a hundred.”

If he asked if it was more than twenty, she was in trouble.

“How many tickets have I issued?”

“To me?” Her voice squeaked.

She didn’t have the ability to remove memories, but she could strongly suggest people remember, or not. Suggestions were her specialty, but at the moment, she couldn’t come up with a pleasant one.

“How many tickets have I issued, to you, for speeding?”

“None?”

“Wrong.”

“Wrong?” Was his memory faulty, or was hers?

“The answer is ‘one.’”

“Really? When?”

“Right now, sweetheart. You’re going to get your first ticket. Congratulations.” The man started writing on his little clip board. “And I’d bet it won’t be your last, but no one would cover that bet.”

Skye sat in shock while the sheriff took his time writing her up. He’d seen that license and registration so much since she’d started driving, he should have the numbers memorized, but that didn’t seem to make things easier. As she watched him in the mirror, it looked like he wasn’t doing anything but staring at his computer screen.

Probably playing a leisurely game of chess, making her wait the equivalent of all the tickets he never gave her, but should have. She was so going to miss the bonfire.

***

What seemed like an hour later she was headed off toward the high school, sending the sheriff a strong suggestion to head in the other direction for the rest of the evening.

She passed the west side. No flames yet.

She found a parking space and headed over. No breeze. Less danger. Good.

The dirt and grass of the field made for uneven footing and she was forced to watch where she walked. Only when she joined the crowd closing around the huge pile of wood was she able to look at the people.

A blond head. Too short. Another, but that one was female. So many hats!

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on Jamison. That link between them was growing stronger by the second. He was coming.

She turned to look at the parking lot behind her.

Nothing.

Then she faced the school.

There. Coming from the football field. Dressed in black. It was impossible to tell from the distance, but he seemed to have picked her out of the crowd.

Oh, yeah. White clothes. Duh.

She, the angel, and he, the devil.

Something deep inside shivered, but she ignored it.

A small contingent of the band struck up the school song, but Skye didn’t take her eyes off Jamison. Only a few seemed to know the song, but others hummed. She didn’t care.

Someone with a mega phone called the mighty Flat Spring Spartans forward and the football team, all carrying wood torches, came around the corner of the auditorium. They ran toward the crowd, passing quite near Jamison, but the serious lad in black couldn’t seem to take his gaze from her, either.

Something shivered again.

The team’s pounding feet showed Skye what a racing heart must feel like—a rumbling in her chest, powerful, insistent, uncontrollable. Surely it was just the team.

A great whooshing sound finally ripped her attention to her left where the pile of wood was engulfed in violent flames, accompanied by a strong smell of kerosene. The crowd cheered as the remainder of the team filed by, tossing their torches into the fire as they passed.

By the time she turned back toward Jamison, he was only a few yards away. He hadn’t slowed. A few more strides and he was against her, pushing her back a step with his momentum, reaching out for the sides of her face, pressing his lips against hers.

She hadn’t given him the suggestion to kiss her. Truly she hadn’t. And in front of the crowd? She wouldn’t have. But she was very glad he’d thought of it.

Skye returned the kiss with what little knowledge she’d learned from watching others, marveling that no one shouted, “Hey, the Somerled chick is kissing someone and he’s not her own kind!”

She pulled back, but he didn’t let her move far. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight against him. They probably resembled a couple of trees that had been planted too close together and now grew as one.

She looked toward the crowd. The flames had died down after the first flare and people had moved closer to the fire. No one was looking their way. People at a distance were looking at the fire, not the white and black shapes smashed together at the back of the pack.

“You have my scarf.”

“Yes, I do. And I’m not ready to give it up just yet.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Are you making a little voodoo doll of me?”

He looked at her sharply, then smiled. “Something like that. Only this doll will do whatever I want.”

“Please don’t tell me it’s lifesize.”

He choked on a laugh, but said nothing.

He looked at the fire, sniffed, then grinned. A wicked light gleamed in his eyes and her first impressions of a devil hit her again.

“What are you up to, Jamison Shaw? You look guilty as sin.”

There was that sharp look again, and then the smile. She’d never noticed that about him before. It was as if she was standing there with a different guy and she was suddenly uncomfortable. She pushed on his chest. He resisted, but finally let her pull back.

“Answer me. What are you up to?”

His smile broke into a grin.

“It’s the wood. I brought some of it...from Granddad’s pile.” He raised his eyebrows. Twice.

“Not the pig shed!”

“Oh, yes. The pig shed.”

“Oh, Jamison, you didn’t.”

“Actually, I didn’t think about the smell. Granddad did. I wonder if they’ll even notice.”

They both turned toward the flames. The orange light danced, illuminating grinning teenagers who had less attention for the fire than they had for each other. Old couples stood silently together with bored faces. Newer couples grinned and chattered like they were on stage being interviewed; the only thing missing was a microphone.

The burning pile shifted. A shower of ash burned itself up into the air, and faces stopped grinning, mouths stopped chattering. Noses started curling.

“Nope, Granddad, it didn’t rain enough,” Jamison murmured in her ear.

People started backing away from the fire. Someone mentioned a stink bomb.

“Nope, smells like a pig farm.”

“Someone put pig manure on the fire?”

“We’re all going to smell like pig shit tomorrow!”

“Our field will stink!”

“What a shitty bonfire.”

“Come on, let’s go.” Jamison took her hand and pulled her toward the road. “Let’s walk. I didn’t drive.”

“We can take mine.”

“Nah. Let’s walk back to my place. I can bring you back for your car later. Afraid of a little walk, Skye? I thought Miss Somerled wasn’t afraid of anything.”

“Very funny. And what about you, Mr. E? What are you afraid of?”

“Why, I’m afraid someone will steal my phone and read my text messages.” Jamison laughed when his voice cracked.

She laughed too, but poor Mr. E.—he was in for a tough time. No doubt Jamison had guessed the English teacher’s real fear, and when the rest of the town found out, he’d be lucky to avoid a lynching. She wondered if Jonathan would be asked to handle that. He had a great gift for problems of the heart...at least the romantic kind.

“I’m afraid it will take a while for that smell to get out of my nose.” Jamison sniffed his collar, then smiled. “I think we got out of there in the nick of time.”

“I’m sure.” Actually, she had no idea what a pig shed, or pig shite—as Kenneth called it—smelled like. She only knew to follow Jamison’s cue and turn up her nose. That was one sense she didn’t covet at the moment.

The walk took longer than she expected, but she didn’t complain. Heaven forbid he should call her a coward.

The word ‘coward’ pinged in her head, reminding her of the conversation in English class. Why did Jamison believe himself a coward? And there was no doubt about it, the guy believed it as if God himself had given him a scarlet ‘C’ to wear on his chest.

She pried at his memories but couldn’t reach them. She couldn’t touch Texas. How much had Lucas cleaned? Or was it just a clear patch in his mind she couldn’t get past, like a stretch of wet ice she couldn’t cross?

Skye resolved to let it go for the moment. Maybe she’d get Jonathan to take a stab at him. If she could help Jamison, even a little bit, before she was gone, she’d feel better about going.

The stars got brighter as they started down Route 4, leaving streetlights behind. Jamison hadn’t let go of her gloved hand since they’d left the fire and she wondered how many people in the passing cars had noticed. Enough that no one offered them a ride, that was for sure.

She didn’t mind walking. It wasn’t as if she would tire, and she wasn’t worried about Jamison wearing himself out. She just wanted to keep the hand-holding a private matter.

She didn’t have to remember to breathe. In fact, breathing in sync with someone was quite an interesting thing. It was as if Jamison tuned his breathing to hers, or she to his. And it made for intriguing music in her ears. Every swallow, every irregularity in his cadence was like a change in key.

Something caught on her boot and she nearly fell, but his hand squeezed tight and he refused to let her go down.

That silly shiver went through her, as if she had bones and the shiver rolled through the marrow.

She stopped. She had no bones. It had to be her soul that was shivering. But why?

He held fast and stopped with her. “What’s the matter? Do you need to rest?”

“Yes. I guess I do. Just for a minute.”

He led her over to a fence and released her hand so she could climb up and sit on the top rail. The bottom rail had crescents gnawed into it. Some horse had taken a liking to the flavor of the wood, apparently, and had eaten off the softer edges of the planks. Maybe he’d not been fed well. Very sad.

“Are you cold?” He reached up and rubbed the front of her thighs.

“Why? Are you going to offer me my scarf now?”

He grinned. “Not yet. I don’t have it on me.”

“Oh. Well, I’m not cold anyway.”

“You shivered.”

“I have no idea why. Maybe you’re scaring me tonight.”

He froze, but a split second later he was all smiles. She doubted a mortal would have caught the original reaction. But to a being for whom time didn’t move in a straight line, it was plain to see he was hiding something.

Suddenly her wariness was very real. If Mr. Evans were there he’d say “Ah hah! Do you see, Mr. Shaw, how she trembles?”

A mathematical equation written on an English teacher’s blackboard flashed in her mind.

“If fear, then hide.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Skye changed her mind. Back by the road, completely visible to anyone driving by, was where she wanted to be.

She jumped off the fence and Jamison was instantly in front of her, pinning her against the chewed up lower rung.

“Careful,” he said, holding her waist like he was trying to support her.

But was he?

She tried to read his expression, but found him focused solely on her. She poked once again at his memories, going back just a little while, back to the bonfire an hour ago. She got nothing. The blank wall that dropped in front of her made her think of all kinds of freaky, alien scenarios, but they were silly.

It didn't make sense.

Were they defenses? Why would she find defenses in his mind? Why would Jamison be on guard? Unless Lucas had slipped up and Jamison remembered his earlier suspicions, that she and her people were murderers, Jamison had no reason to be...

Did he remember?

She searched his face for a split second, but it was hard to look at a guy when his eyes were closed and his lips were pressed against your own.

He sucked on her lips, her face, buried his nose in the hair behind her ear and breathed her in, as if he were suffocating and she was the air he needed. She imagined tingles spreading beneath her hair.

He pressed his body against her, like he couldn't get near enough, like he was unaware of anything in the world but her.

Holy cow. Was that it? Was she finding it so hard to locate a path into his memories because his mind was completely occupied with her?

If she had an ego, it would inflate and explode.

She smiled over his shoulder as he kissed her neck, pulling her close. It was a lucky thing she had no sensation of what he was doing. She had a good guess of the chemical reaction a mortal girl would be suffering in the same situation, a chemical road Skye could never go down.

Suffering? Of course it would be best to think of it that way. It made it easier not to wish for it. Like some girls pretended chocolate was poison—Skye was on a sensation diet.

Except for the prickling along her skin.

Apparently the blushing camouflage was a package deal, probably to help her know when to react like a mortal should; when her skin felt covered in tiny stars it was time for good girls to blush and step away.

Jamison growled in her ear and she laughed.

“It's not funny, Skye. I want to be alone with you. Just to hold you without thinking someone might pull up at any minute and interrupt.”

Skye stopped smiling. She'd heard such lines before, but they'd never been said to her; she'd been eavesdropping. There went that imaginary ego again, insisting the guy be rewarded for making her feel special. But that, too, was a road she could never go down.

She knew he wanted some physical satisfaction, but she would never be the one to give it to him. However, if kisses could make him happy, she could give him that.

Giddy with relief, sure that Jamison had only been trying to hide his attraction to her, she grinned up at him. He grinned back and took her hand, pulling her back to the road. She had no time to make promises, or exact any. No time to tell him where the lines would be drawn, but she'd make sure he knew that a simple smile carried no promises.

The road churned beneath their feet as they made their way home. He wasn't sharing any plans with her, but she could tell by his speed he had something in mind. He'd probably take her somewhere in his car or into the cornfield where they wouldn't be easily found.

Poor Jamison. She earnestly hoped he wouldn't be too disappointed when she turned out to be different from most girls. But what could he honestly expect from a Somerled chick who probably wasn't even supposed to date anyone but a distant cousin?

Oh, brother, how she hated that assumption. “A bunch of in-breds” couldn't be further from the truth.

At last they passed the Latimer place—dark, deserted, waiting for a new generation of farmer to bring it out of the fifties. Maybe when Kenneth was gone, Lucas would expand, gobble up everything but Jamison and Lori's house, and probably that, too, if the pair moved away again. It should matter little to Skye what would happen then. Her time was near; she'd never know what would become of any of these farms, or the people who owned them.

They passed the fire hydrant. Next would be the canal and Kenneth's driveway entrance.

Jamison slowed and turned down the drive, but he led her between it and the canal, where the grasses silenced their footsteps. They passed the small granary, the spot where the pig shed used to stand, devoid now of the boards that had been piled there for over a year. His shoes crunched a bit on the gravel as they worked their way across the back of the yard, nearing the corral with the loading chute.

The top of the chute came to Jamison’s chest, and as they passed it, something screamed out of the darkness at him. His fast reflexes kept him from getting side-swiped by Geraldo, Kenneth's mean-spirited cat, but still he held on to Skye's hand, as if his life depended on it.

He raised her hand and kissed it, then pulled her around the corner, down past the spent garden planted smack dab between the two large corrals. There were no cars parked this far back, but they could get to the cornfields, out past the windbreak trees.

Skye was a little surprised. As bundled up as Jamison always seemed to be, she would have thought him too cold to want to remain outside, but then she remembered how hot people seemed to get when they were...holding each other. Maybe he hoped to get warm that way.

Maybe he'd be taking her back to her car a lot sooner than he expected.

A breeze nudged the wind chimes on Kenneth's back porch and Skye paused, looking back at the unusually dark yard. She caught sight of Kenneth's pick-up parked under the awning of the west shed. Jamison’s car was parked just beyond that, west of the house. His mom's car was gone.

“Jamison?” She didn't know why she whispered. No one seemed to be around.

“What?”

“How did you get to the school tonight?”

“I got a ride.”

“Why?” What was she missing?

“Long story. I'll tell you later.”

He started pulling her along. When she resisted a little, hoping he would slow down enough to let her think, he turned back to her, his eyes dark and intense. He stepped close and bent his head, to kiss her again, but she covered his lips with her gloved fingers.

“Who gave you a ride?” She moved her hand so he could answer.

“Miss Rachel Phillips.” He grinned. “Jealous?”

She frowned. “Of course not. I was just curious. She doesn't live out here, does she?”

“I don't know. I wasn't interested enough to ask. Then I thought if I hitched a ride in, I could beg a ride back from you.”

That sounded good. She'd buy that.

“Then I decided a nice walk might cool me off. But it didn't.”

He bent and kissed her then, and she imagined the temperature of his lips would be much higher than 98.6. Before she opened her eyes, she was being dragged away again.

They stopped under the tree house where Jamison finally released her hand. He collected the ends of ropes dangling from branches high above their heads.

“Clever boy.”

“You think so?”

“We won't need a ladder to clear the fence, we can just use the ropes.”

“Clear the fence?” He looked at the wall of boards behind him. “What are you talking about?”

“We aren't going into the cornfield?”

He looked genuinely shocked at the idea.

“What for?”

Oh, she was getting very good at blushing, even in the dark.

“To be...um.”

“Alone?” He was grinning. “No. I had a better idea, actually.” He looked up into the darkness. “Ever been inside a real bona fide tree house before?”

He was expecting her to be afraid. Of course a mortal girl might be, so she’d play the part.

“Are you kidding? Do you know how high up that thing is?” Actually, she'd been dying to see the clubhouse since Lucas and Jonathan had spent an afternoon talking about it. They seemed to think it was pretty safe in spite of its age. The climb up sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, for mortals anyway.

“Is Miss Somerled afraid?” Jamison taunted, swinging the end of a rope in a circle.

“Yes, she is. Unless you have an elevator, I'm not going up there, let alone in the dark.”

“Your wish is my command, Miss.” He walked behind the tree and carried out a wood pallet. Ropes were tied to each corner then jumbled together where the end of one rope led up into the sky. “If you sit right in the center and keep yourself balanced, this is your very high-tech elevator.”

She laughed.

“Oh, come on. Try it. I've used it, just this morning, to take up wood for the windows. Lucas helped me.”

“He did?” What was Lucas up to? Why had he not mentioned it to her?

“Yeah. We made a very efficient team.”

“Lucas is nothing if not efficient.”

“So, will you try it?”

“Can't we wait until daylight, Jamison? What if I fall?”

“I'll tell you what. If you haven't got the hang of it by the time I get you four feet off the ground, I'll lower you back down and take you to your car.”

Skye didn't like the sound of that. Either she’d master his contraption, or he'd take her back to her car and be done with her.

She didn't want him to be done with her. Not yet. Not until he asked for more than she wanted, or was capable of giving. She wanted to be wanted, even if she couldn’t be had.

“Fine. But if I fall and die, I'll kill you.”

“It's a deal.”

A few moments and a few artful squeals later, she was seated calmly in the center of the pallet, gripping ropes above her head and being hauled up into the darkness.

“Okay, hold tight. Don't try to climb off, all right?”

“Okay.” She added a whimper for good measure.

“I'm locking the gears, then I'm going to climb up and help you off.”

The pallet jolted, then held firm. Sounds of Jamison climbing to her rescue gave her a little thrill, and she wondered if he could tell she was smiling in the inky shadows beneath the canopy of leaves. He slipped and cursed, then the shuffle of shoe on bark resumed.

“Just about there. Are you okay?”

“Yes. Be careful. I've decided to let you live until you get me on the ground again.”

“Oh, now. You've gotten all the way up here, it would be a shame to not take a look around before going back downstairs, don't you think?”

“Stairs. What a perfectly lovely idea. Maybe I'll stay up here while you build some.”

“Fine by me.”

He was there, steadying her flying carpet.

“Skye?”

“Yeah?”

“Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

She’d clamped them shut and gripped the ropes while she’d concentrated on NOT letting Lucas or Jonathan into her head. The last thing she wanted was for this night to be scrutinized and analyzed with her sitting between two Somerleds like a motor being disassembled and the malfunction being identified.

“How do I get off?”

Jamison showed her the branch she could grasp and use to pull herself onto the tree. While she hadn't noticed many footholds along the trunk, there were plenty of thick boards to stand on just below the structure, probably used by the people building the house. A couple of rungs led up to the bottom, but the opening looked to be boarded up.

“How do we get in?”

“Through the door. Watch.” Jamison removed a metal bar from a line of rings and he carefully lowered the door, then tossed the heavy bar up inside, where it landed with a muffled clank. The boards across the door had only been for show. “I'll go up and pull you in after me.”

“Whatever you say.”

His legs disappeared.

Skye had nothing to fear. If she fell off the branches, she'd land gently on the ground; gravity had minimal effect on her. But she’d given a superb performance. In fact, the entire night she'd been just a bit too into the character.

She had to knock it off. After tonight.

“Skye!” Jamison sounded worried.

“I'm here.”

“Good. Come on. Climb up as far as you can, then I'll lift you the rest of the way.” He still sounded worried.

She moved under the hole and grabbed onto the sides of the opening, then climbed up the last two rungs, finding herself seated on the floor of the clubhouse without needing any help from Jamison.

Although the only light came from the gap around her knees, Jamison moved around the pitch black room without bumping into much. Then he was next to her, nudging her to move away from the hole, pulling the door up and sliding the metal rod through something on the top of the door.

“What happened to the windows?”

“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”

He moved behind her and she waited for a flashlight to come on. Her eyes were straining to find some pinpoint of light, some shape a bit darker than the rest, but there was nothing.

His head lowered to her shoulder.

“Do you trust me?”

“No.”

He laughed. “Why not?”

“Because you’ve been acting funny all night, and now you won’t turn on a light.”

“I will if you’ll promise to trust me.”

“I can’t make that promise.”

“Are you always so honest?”

“Always.” After all, acting the simpering damsel wasn’t lying, technically. If it had been a sin, she surely wouldn’t have been able to do it.

“Excellent.” He pecked her shoulder. “Well, can you at least pretend to trust me for a minute?”

“Okay. I can pretend.”

“Wonderful. Now, keep pretending.”

He kissed her behind her ear and his mouth moved down the slope of her neck. She was waiting for his hands to head somewhere they shouldn’t, but they didn’t touch her.

“Skye?”

“Um hm.”

“I have your scarf here. Do you want it now?”

“Yes.”

“Reach back and take it.”

“I’m not going to fall for something so lame, Jamison. Hand it to me.”

“Take it. You can’t have it unless you take it.”

She reached behind her with both hands, felt her scarf dangling from around his neck and started to pull. Her right hand was pulled back and a bracelet was snapped onto her wrist. Before she could register anything else but the scarf in her other hand, he’d snapped a bracelet on that wrist as well.

She turned to face him, both hands trapped behind her. There was only blackness. His mouth brushed hers, and when she began to protest, a wad of cloth was stuffed between her teeth. Not rough, but insistent. While her mind reeled at what perversions Jamison might have planned for her, the scarf was taken from her hand and its length draped around her gag then tied behind her head. Her hair got caught in the knot.

He stepped away from her then. Every noise was amplified. A hand sliding over wood. The squeak of a hinge. Small things sprinkled across the floor.

There was a loud scratch; a match flared, a cloud of sulfur rose to the ceiling. Kneeling in front of a long wood box, Jamison lit a single candle, then carefully slid a glass cylinder over it. He turned toward her as he stood.

She dreaded seeing him smile over his little success, but he wasn’t smiling, and he was looking at her as serious as death.

The flame shook, but not from some disturbance in the air—his hands were shaking violently. He watched his shadow quiver on the wall while he moved to a low stool and sat the candle holder back down. Little white sticks seemed to dance on the floor, in unison with the candlelight. He’d spilled the matches.

Skye was very afraid; she was afraid for Jamison.

When he straightened and rubbed his face with both hands, it reminded her she couldn’t do the same.

“Thanks for pretending to trust me.” He looked at her then. And his mind yawned wide open...

Precious Heaven!

He remembered everything.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“I know you won't believe this, but I'll tell you first that I'm sorry.” Jamison walked toward her slowly, his hands out, like he was trying not to spook a horse. “I’m going to put you over there, then I won’t touch you. I promise.”

Skye glared, but allowed him to move her over to the long box. If he tried to put her inside, she wasn't about to cooperate.

“Sit.” He stepped back and waited for her to obey, then he moved a red and white Indian blanket from another box on the opposite wall and sat down, holding it. He didn't relax, she noticed, but sat on the edge, ready to spring to his feet if she tried anything.

“I'm sorry this was necessary, but I couldn't think of anything better.”

She murmured, hoping he might want to know what she had to say badly enough to remove her gag.

“I guess you'll just have to listen for a while, huh?”

He took a deep shaky breath, like he'd come to the end of a long day and needed to rest a while.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall.

“Don't do that!” He was suddenly in front of her, grabbing her head, forcing her to look at him. “Don't call them. I know you can do things. That they can do things with their minds, but I promise you, if they come for you they'll wish they hadn't. We'll all wish they hadn't.”

He let go and moved back, letting the candlelight reach her face.

“Do you understand?”

She nodded. She hadn't intended to call the others...yet. She wanted to see if the evening could end without anyone else knowing that Jamison had become a threat again. Depending on what he planned to do, she might not have a choice.

The whole world knew what a teenage boy was capable of if he was pushed too far or thought he had no options. Usually those troubled boys didn't come from loving families, or even loving-but-flawed families. But she did understand the stress Jamison was under, with Kenneth dying. And she couldn't get to those memories of Texas. Only he knew what had happened there.

One unknown. Sometimes that was all it took to make the rest irrelevant.

He finally returned to his seat and started folding the blanket. If she was a mortal, she'd be getting a little cold, wouldn't she? Did he really not care?

She checked her internal temperature. It was fine. The room must be warmer than she thought. Looking around, she found a miniature radiator in the corner to her right.

“I wouldn't let you freeze.” He pointed to the box she was sitting on. “And there's food and water in the boxes, so we really have all the time in the world.”

She murmured again.

“Not yet. I can't trust you...not to scream...yet.”

She tried to promise.

“Sorry. Not yet.” He folded his arms and tucked his hands in his armpits. “I guess I could have taken you to the old Latimer place, or somewhere on the other side of town, but I didn't want to leave you alone very long. This way, they can see that I'm home. If I went missing along with you, that wouldn't be good.”

What disturbed Skye the most was the planning that had gone into getting her up there. Just how long did he think to keep her?

She tried to promise again, with her muted speech and then her eyes.

He looked away and eventually she wondered if he'd forgotten she was there.

“All right. I'll take it off. But if you scream, it goes back on. Got it?”

Jamison couldn't mean it. He couldn't. But all night she'd felt like she no longer knew him, hadn't she?

She nodded, almost reluctant to give him a reason to step close to her.

Delicately, he untied the knot, then pulled out the large white handkerchief he’d stuffed between her teeth.

Kenneth! What would he think if she didn't go see him tomorrow? Or for a few days? She wanted to ask Jamison just that, but she'd hold on to the question and use it when he didn't seem so...dangerous.

“I didn’t want to have to scare you like this, but I’d be a coward if I didn’t do something.” He wrapped the scarf around his neck and resumed his seat, then folded the hanky and put it in the pouch pocket of his dark sweatshirt. “Are you afraid?”

“No.”

“Liar. I thought you were always honest.” He sneered.

“I am. Why would I be afraid? You've been kissing me all night. Or was that just to get me up here?”

His gaze dropped. “Let's just call that a series of good-bye kisses.”

Skye shut her eyes. “Why? Did Lucas tell you I'll be leaving?”

Jamison’s head snapped up. “No!” Something on his wrist stole his attention. “When?” His voice broke and he started again. “When are you supposed to leave?”

He was hurt. He did care! Everything was going to be fine.

She kept a sober face. “Two weeks. Maybe sooner.”

“Permanently?”

“Yeah.”

His foot started tapping. “Where to?”

“Another compound.”

He opened his phone and the little blue screen lit up his frown. He jumped up, so quickly it affected the candle. He went to the door in the floor and slid out the bolt. Looking back as he was lowering himself through, he said, “Don't make a sound, Skye. Please. We have a lot of talking to do. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I believe you.”

The door closed again and she heard him slide the bolt through the loops on the bottom.

Maybe his mother had come home. Maybe Lucas or the others had sensed her distress and were looking for her. Maybe she was too shocked to pick up on anything.

She forced her mind to settle, to avoid reaching out for anyone's thoughts.

Was he waiting just below the door, testing her?

She pushed aside her bruised emotions and the worry that he'd never really cared about her, in favor of a more important question, the answer to which might be the key for getting out of her little prison...

What had happened in Texas?

***

Jamison turned on the water tap on his granddad’s enclosed porch. The bar of LAVA soap sat dry, cracked and untouched on the indented edge of the old sink, waiting dutifully until someone with hard-earned dirt on his hands might have need of a good grainy scrub. Waiting for a man who might not be coming home.

The water splashed out of a faucet that had lost its screen long ago, raging with wicked speed around the basin, then plunging down the drain in defiance of any need to conserve it.

Jamison watched the torrent, hands braced on either side of the porcelain, exultant in the waste that would probably piss off the eco-nuts next door. Wild drops splashed onto the odd green soap and stirred its fragrance. Nothing perfumed about it, but the scent summoned memories that slammed into his chest like a steel pan in the hands of an angry cook.

Memories like Granddad sitting on the sturdy bench taking off his boots, their surfaces completely concealed with muck and mud not allowed over the threshold.

Granddad reaching for his cowboy hat as he walked outside, leaving an empty antler and a banging screen door in his wake.

Granddad pulling out of the driveway in his stock truck, then pulling back in on the other side of the house to ask if a little lad would care to join him at the auction.

Granddad nudging the lad’s hand into the air when the opening bid for a piglet was lowered to two bits, then grumbling the whole ride home when the piglet had to ride in the truck’s cab to keep from being trampled by the calves in the rear. And teaching the lad what a Scotch Blessing was after the piglet crapped all over the lad and the seat.

Granddad hosing him off while still seated in the truck—even Jamison had needed the lava soap that day.

The warped inner door squeaked and his mom came out on to the porch. He loved that squeak.

“I thought you were here.”

“I am.”

“A couple of Somerled men are at the front door. They’re looking for your little friend. What’s her name?”

“Skye. Her name’s Skye.”

“Come talk to them, would you?”

“No problem.”

Homework. Bonfire. Pig smells. Rachel Phillips.

Homework. Bonfire. Pig smells. Rachel Phillips.

“Hey, Lucas. Mom says you’re looking for Skye.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Saw her at the bonfire tonight.”

“She said she was going, but Jonathan drove past the school a little while ago and her car is there, but she’s not.”

“Oh, well, maybe she rode in someone else’s car like I did.” Rachel Phillips. Rachel Phillips. “Maybe they went somewhere after. The fire was kind of a letdown. Smelled like a pig farm.” He grinned at Lucas.

Lucas laughed. “Oh, I didn’t think of that.”

“Yeah, neither did I. I feel bad for the guy who has to babysit the fire until it goes out.”

“Are you worried? Should we call Dwain Cooke?” His mom opened the door wider and stepped back. “He’d be happy to help find her, I’m sure.”

“No, that’s all right. We just worried when she wasn’t with her car. What Jamison suggested makes sense. We’ll just wait until we hear from her.” Lucas followed Jonathan down the steps. “I’m only her guardian for a little longer, so I don’t want to do a poor job of it.”

“Oh? Is she going somewhere or are you?” Thank goodness his mom had asked. He didn’t think his voice would have held to do it himself.

“Our little Skye will be joining Marcus. They’d gotten attached, it seems.”

“Awww. Well, let us know if you need us to help track her down.” Mom smiled and shut the door. “I’m going to bed. You wore out Daddy today, then he wore me out telling me all about it.” She wiped away a tear then smiled as she ruffled Jamison’s hair. “You’re a good boy, Kenneth Jamison Shaw. And don’t you forget it.”

Too bad she was wrong.

And he couldn’t be a good boy again until he’d found his friends. Every time he had a plan, Skye got in the way. Now, instead of learning the truth, like he’d hoped, he had to change gears and worry about the Somerleds blowing her up. ‘Cause he’s pretty sure it was a Marcus Firework he’d heard about on the tape.

If she was going to share Marcus’s fate, did that mean his interference had gotten her in trouble?

He really shouldn’t care; she’d been in on Marcus’s little barbeque. Aaaand she was in on Ray and Burke disappearing...which was the whole reason he’d lured her to the tree house.

Good. He was focused again. No more distractions. No more kissing, that was for sure. So he’d added making out to the plan, improvised. But it wasn’t like he’d be able to touch her again after she confessed—to being a murderer, or alien, or whatever the Somerleds turned out to be.

Focus. He needed to focus.

And he needed to keep that image out of his head, the one of Skye, arms extended, rising into the air.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jamison was freezing by the time he got to the tree. He’d stopped on the patio again, to splash cold water on his face, but hadn’t dried his hands well. It was probably only 50 degrees, but it felt like an artic wind between his wet fingers.

There’d been no movement from the Somerled direction, but he’d skirted the far side of outbuildings and corrals to avoid them. He’d have used the same route with Skye, but it would have made her even more suspicious than she’d already been.

Her face, after he’d lit the candle. Her standing confused and surprised in the middle of the room. That stupid scarf tied around her head. It all made his gut clench.

With one foot propped on the first foothold, he paused and took a deep breath, pushing away all soft thoughts—all images of his mother and grandfather—shoving them into a strong box in his mind and slamming the lid closed.

He didn’t worry about being seen against the blackness of the tree; he’d dressed carefully, put a black beanie over his blond head. Gloves would have been smart, though, not for camouflage, but to keep warm. His hands were so cold he might very well lose his grip.

Climbing the tree in the dark turned out to be pretty easy, though, even with the center of the rungs cut out. He remembered every crevice, and soon he was once again sliding that bolt from the door.

He opened the hatch and waited a few heartbeats, to see if she was going to come running at him, to hurt him, but he heard nothing. He stuck his head up and looked inside. Nothing. The candlelight showed a clear floor. She had to be crouched in a corner. His gut clenched again, but he ignored it.

He pulled himself up with routine ease and swung his legs inside. Two seconds later, he was sliding the bolt home and adding a padlock, one with a combination. He’d brought a small flashlight along, in case he needed it to open the lock.

The room was warm. He took off his hat and shoved it in his back pocket, then braced himself to face her.

She wasn’t crouching in a corner—in any of them. She wasn’t sitting on one of the boxes.

He whipped out the small flashlight and checked the boards he’d used to cover the windows. None of them were missing, none looked loose. She had to be there!

He dropped to his knees in front of a long box and flung the lid open, ready for a teenage vampire or any possibility to come at him.

Just water bottles, their contents winking in the beam of the flashlight. He closed the lid and scooted over to the other box. On top of the wood, her jacket, scarf, and other things were folded neatly in a pile, and on top of the pile was the box of matches he’d spilled on the ground...

...and a pair of handcuffs.

“Shit.”

His mind whirled as he picked through her clothes. How on earth had she gotten out? Why had she taken off her freaking clothes?

Oh, Lucas and Jonathan were going to be thrilled when she showed up at the front door with nothing on. He might as well climb into one of the wood boxes now and save them a few steps.

Why would she need her clothes off? Had she been able to squeeze out without them?

The escape hatch!

Jamison sprang to his feet, took the candle off the stool and set it under the escape hatch he hadn’t considered nailing shut. It flew open and thunked against the roof.

He stuck his head out, but only his eyes cleared the top of the roof; he couldn’t even get a shoulder through.

He turned in a circle, but she wasn’t up there. If she’d gotten out, she’d made it down the tree. If she’d fallen, he would have seen her body on the ground.

Wouldn’t he?

He heard metal clank below him. She was trying to get the bolt out of the door!

He stepped down off the stool and she snapped a handcuff on one of his wrists, but when she tried to pull is hands together, behind his back, she couldn’t do it. He pulled his hands in front of him, the handcuffs hanging from one wrist, his small flashlight in the other hand.

She was behind him, and when he turned toward her, she moved to stay that way.

He laughed. Of course she didn’t want him to see her in her underwear. She must have been hiding under the blanket and he hadn’t noticed.

He dropped the smile. No quarter. No mercy.

“Would you like me to turn my back while you get dressed?”

“Would you?”

“Yeah.” If she didn’t get dressed, well...she just had to get dressed, that’s all.

He faced the nearest wall. He really wanted an excuse to muzzle her again. Even those two words, “would you,” had hit him in the stomach and the poor organ had been abused enough. Before the night was over, he’d be puking into the bucket he’d brought up for her to pee in. He just knew it.

That reminded him. “There’s a bucket, if you need to pee.”

She snorted; she should have been scared.

He needed her to be scared. He needed her upset and ranting—mad enough to start spitting out what she’d done with his friends!

He turned, but her back was to him. Her head was bent while she did up her pants. One thin shirt was already on.

Her head snapped up and she glared. Her hair floated down to frame her face. After she pulled on her sweater, she took control of the mass and began to braid it, watching him, poised to jump away from him if he came in for a kiss, or anything else.

But the time for kissing was gone. Besides, this was someone he didn’t know.

“What would Kenneth think?” She raised her chin.

Jamison smiled and she took a step back, smart girl. He slid the scarf out from under her jacket and reached for her.

“Thank you for reminding me. Rule number one,” he said as he pressed the hanky back into her mouth and covered it with the scarf, “there will be no mention of my family.”

He should have cuffed her hands first. She stepped away and ripped off her gag.

“Oh, no you don’t. I’ll sit here and play your little game, Jamison, but you’re not going to touch me again.”

Don’t touch her. Don’t touch her. The voice in his head was insistent. And female!

He frowned. “All right. Let’s start with...what the hell was that?”

***

Not good. She shouldn’t have given him the suggestion twice. Surely he wouldn’t have suspected just one. Heaven have mercy, what was wrong with her?

Of course she shouldn’t have anything to fear, but while she was standing in camouflage behind him, she’d been very afraid what would happen if he got a look at her, blending into the background like a chameleon.

Miracle of miracles, he’d allowed her to dress. She should have thanked him for it, but instead, she’d played the Kenneth card, the one she’d been holding onto for an emergency. She thought the danger was over, so she’d dropped the silly thing off her tongue. She should have been biting it.

While he made himself comfortable on his box, she toyed with the scarf, imagining how she might use it against him.

He sniffed and made a nasty face.

She was missing something. A bad smell? What would smell bad? Then she had it.

“I assume you used part of the pig shed up here.”

He frowned, trying not smile. Or maybe the smell was so bad it was easy to frown.

“I did.” He moved the heater out toward the center of the room. Apparently it had been warming up a pungent piece of wood. The smell, it seemed, would not change his plans.

“Just what are you doing, Jamison? What do you want from me?” She put on her last layers of clothing, stuffed the scarf in her pocket, and resumed her seat on the opposite box. “I’d give you the “I thought we were friends” bit, but I won’t.”

It hurt just saying it.

“I don’t like pretending to be friends with murderers.”

“Ah, I see. So you do remember.” The memory of saying goodbye to Marcus stirred a heavy gray cloud in her soul. She closed her eyes and pretended it had nothing to do with the goodbyes she’d be saying herself. Soon.

“Oh, I remember all right.” He took a breath, as if he were pacing himself. He’d obviously done a bit of planning. Maybe it would take all night, just to get through his questions.

“May I ask how you remember?”

“You mean, how was I able to remember after having my brain stripped?”

She winced. Adjusting memories had never sat well with her, maybe because she had never performed it, or couldn’t perform it. Maybe if she’d been inside someone’s mind while it was happening, she would see how harmless Lucas claimed it was.

“Yes. That’s what I mean. How were you able to remember?”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You could run home and tell Lucas so he could keep it from ever happening again, so you could have the memory of tonight taken out and I wouldn’t remember it either.” He rubbed his hands on his dark pants.

He’d worn black clothing on purpose, even a black beanie. He was very serious. Whatever he had planned, she was going to have to stop him. If he got into serious trouble before Kenneth died, the old man would go through Hell, and in the long run, it would have been her fault.

Talk about screwing up. Had she been correct? Was there something wrong with her? If she was defective, that opened up all kinds of possibilities. If she was defective, she would be able to...lie.

“Your eyes are bl...”

“What?”

“Your eyes are bl...” Nope. Couldn’t lie.

“No, my eyes are green, thanks.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah, I know. I was just trying to lie, to see if it would work.”

He sat back against the wall with his eyes wide. “And did it work? I mean, I understood you were trying to say ‘blue’.”

“I guess not.”

“You guess not. You guess you aren’t able to lie,” he mocked. “Now I’m supposed to believe you cannot lie, so you’ll be giving me the truth, whatever question I ask?

“Believe what you like.”

“You want to know what Ray believed about you? Or do you already know?”

She wrapped her coat tight around her. She didn’t want to answer.

“You already know,” he whispered. “He thought you guys were aliens. Did he tell you voluntarily?”

Skye closed her eyes. If she answered, it was going to sound so bad.

“Could you rephrase the question?”

He was glaring, his face beet-red.

“I mean, if you rephrase the question, ask what you really want to ask, I promise to tell you the truth.”

“He didn’t tell you voluntarily. You either beat it out of him, or Lucas sucked on his brain or something.”

“Ask. What. You really. Want. To ask.”

“Did you kill him like the other guy? Lift him up in the air and blow him up?”

“Ray’s not dead, you idiot.”

Holy cow! She’d just called him an idiot. She’d never said a rude thing to anyone before.

“Right. So much for telling the truth.”

“Oh, Jamie, Ray and Burke are fine. Better than fine. You’ll see.” She stopped herself from sending him a suggestion. So far, he’d forgotten about that.

“As in they’ve gone to a far better place, you mean.” He put his elbows on his knees and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m tired already. Maybe we should just get on with it.”

“Get on with what?”

Skye tried to get into his head again, but all she saw was a list, then it was gone. Get Skye to leave her car at the school, was one of things checked off. She dropped forward, onto her knees in front of him.

“Jamie, please. Get on with what?!”

He looked down his nose at her then, his once-warm eyes now icy cold.

“Rule number two,” he said blandly, “never call me Jamie.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jamison stood up, helped Skye stand, then opened the box he’d been sitting on.

She backed away.

He pulled out a couple of bottles of water—cool enough, since they’d been sheltered from the heat in the room. Behind the water was a box of power bars. He ripped it open and took out two before closing the lid.

His hands were shaking. He folded the blanket up small and put it on the box, then dropped his butt on it. He chucked her one of the waters and the other power bar. She didn’t touch them; he pretended like he didn’t care. He opened his water and took a long drink, but he couldn’t eat. The power bar was pushed aside and he stretched out his legs and crossed his heals.

Maybe she’d been telling the truth in class; maybe she did fear nothing.

He was living right up to his name, though, by failing miserably at being a badass.

“You were saying?” He nodded to her, like he was giving her permission to talk.

“No. I was asking. Get on with what?”

“No. You were about to tell me what in the bloody hell you are.”

She smiled, damn her. “Ask Ray.”

Please, God. Let Ray be alive. Make them bring him back so I can ask him anything. But even as he prayed, he knew that if Ray came climbing up into the tree house just then, he wouldn’t believe it was him. They could probably make a replacement.

She wasn’t smiling anymore.

“You said, that first day in the school parking lot you couldn’t read minds. That proves you are capable of lying.”

“No, I asked told you not to imagine I could read minds.”

“Same thing.”

“No, not really. It didn’t matter what you thought. I can read minds, sometimes.” She sat back against the wall and folded her arms. “You just prayed that Ray is alive, so you can question him.”

“A good guess. Care to try again?”

“Fine. Think something very specific, like when you prayed.”

“I didn’t pray.”

“So you think.”

“Okay, give me a minute.” He remembered what Rachel had told him earlier. No way could she guess that.

Mr. Evans is dating his ex-students.

Skye shook her head.

“What? Give up?”

“No. And no, Mr. Evans is only dating one of his ex-students.”

Impressive, but then again, she came from a race that could erase memories.

“We’re not going to be seeing Mr. Evans again. It’s too bad. He was an interesting teacher. Made kids want to go to class, you know?”

“That can’t happen. He can’t just let some substitute read our papers! He promised.” Jamison grabbed his hair, trying to hear his thoughts over the alarms sounding in his head.

What had Evans said? If I can’t get this back to you, I’ll destroy it? Of course! He already knew he was taking off. Jamison didn’t need to worry. No sub would be reading about Texas.

“What are you talking about?” Skye frowned.

Maybe she couldn’t read every thought. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to bring his focus back to the current crisis.

“What happened?” he sneered. “Some of your people blow him up?”

She threw him a look full of pain, and he didn’t think it was all due to his snottiness.

“You think I would have blown up Marcus? He was like a father to me.” She covered her face for a minute, then dropped her hands in her lap. “We don’t blow people up and we didn’t murder your friends.”

“What happened to Mr. Evans?”

“He’s eloping. Tonight.”

Jamison wished he’d gotten more sleep. Maybe he’d have been more patient. As it was, he wanted to shake her. She knew what he wanted. She just needed to give it up.

“No, I don’t know what you want.”

Wow.

It was now or never.

“What I want is simple. I’m not going to let you go until you tell me the whole thing. What are you? Where are they hiding Ray and Burke’s bodies? What did you do with their families? And no one had better touch mine, or else.”

“Or else what?”

He opened his mind to her again, for a visual of a case of dynamite. Then he slammed his thoughts shut.

Skye grinned. Then she chuckled. Then she laughed her butt off. “Jamison!” She tried to stop smiling, but couldn’t. “I’ve been in Kenneth’s basement. Those crates are empty. All of them.”

Jamison fumed. It didn’t matter what he did, she messed it all up. All day long, things had gone perfectly. Why couldn’t she just do or say something he anticipated?

He was just a joke to her. A disposable neighbor. And now he’d made such a mess of things, he’d probably put his mom in danger. Again. And Granddad!

***

Skye hit that patch of icy road again, the one in Jamison’s mind, protecting the entrance to Texas. The worry in his eyes was no laughing matter. This had to stop. She had no choice.

Boy, if the situation wasn’t a great argument against removing memories, she didn’t know what was. Having that debate with Lucas, however, would never happen. If she told him what had been going on in the tree house, it would unfold just as Jamison suspected; he wouldn’t be allowed to remember a thing.

But watching Jamison lose his mind wasn’t something she could stand by and watch either.

She thought about her primary duty. Malfunctions aside, she did know what that was. And if her decisions were made with only that duty in mind, she had no choice. But this time it was different. Her new emotions had created all kinds of choices. And this time, because she was able, she was going to keep Jamison’s memories out of Lucas’s reach.

“Okay. You win.” She sat back down and locked her fingers around her knees.

His mouth dropped open, then closed, then opened again. Finally, he recovered. “Start talking.”

Just then Skye felt Lucas’s thoughts nudge her for the second time. She’d already made her decision, so she didn’t have to think about what to do.

Don’t worry about me. Don’t look for me. I’m safe. Very important. Don’t worry. I’ll return in the morning.

Lucas knew a planted suggestion when he got one. He might be curious, but he wouldn’t come looking for her.

“All right. You can relax. I just convinced Lucas that I’m in no danger and not to look for me.”

“You lied to him, then. You are in danger.”

Skye had started peeling her coat off, but stopped. She stood and lunged forward, her face stopping only inches from Jamison’s. Her coat, caught around her elbows, held her arms back, as if she’d had enough and needed to be restrained.

It worked. He flinched, if only a little.

“I am fine, Jamison. I can’t not be fine. I have no fear. I don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep.”

He looked only a little surprised. Maybe he believed as Ray had, that she was an alien, or a vampire.

“Okay. What are you?”

“What do you think I am?” She straightened.

“A monster.”

Okay. That hurt.

Skye backed up and sat down. “I’ll start at the beginning, if you don’t mind.” Her voice sounded weak, wounded. She cleared her throat. Better.

“We’ve got all night.”

She ignored him.

“In the beginning, we all resided in Heaven. Me, you, everyone. Right?”

He said nothing.

“There was a war. God’s side won, of course. And a third of the Hosts of Heaven, those who sided with Satan, were cast out of Heaven with him. Right?”

“I don’t remember.” He rolled his eyes.

She looked at him then, with all the intensity of her soul. “I. Do.”

“Hah.” Jamison snorted. When she didn’t smile, he leaned back and folded his arms. “I’m listening.”

“Trust me. A third of the Hosts were cast out with Satan. The rest of us were to come to Earth, to gain bodies and be tested.”

“Something go wrong with the plan? I don’t remember Sunday School either.”

“This part isn’t taught in Sunday School.”

“How convenient.”

“Shut up, Jamison, if you want to hear what I am.” There it was again, that unbreakable thing...breaking. But being rude wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she’d suspected.

“Okay. Go on.”

“Most of the spirits who remained were willing to come down and be tested.” She paused, not sure of the words to use, not wanting to sound stupid.

“And?”

“But there were some who let The Father know that they didn’t want to risk it, and if there was something they could do instead, instead of receiving a body and risking failure down here, then they would prefer it.”

“A Host of Cowards.” He smirked.

While Skye appreciated the fact that Jamison had lightened up considerably in the last few minutes, he didn’t have to be so astute. It was why she’d tried to choose her words carefully.

“The Final Host, actually. It’s what we’re called.”

“You’re called? The Somerleds are the Host of Cowards?”

“Jamison, don’t be a jerk. Well, don’t be a worse jerk than you’ve been all night.”

Oh, she was on a roll. Show her an unbreakable rule and she’d shatter it with a snap.

He looked a little surprised too.

“Yes, I just called you a jerk.”

“That’s not what I was thinking.”

“Oh. Sorry. What were you thinking?”

“That you’re not real.”

It was nearly as bad as being called a monster.

He shook his head.

“Sorry. Back up. I didn’t mean that. I meant I was just trying to wrap my brain around what you are.” He stood and grabbed the blanket out from under him, then, as he went to put it around her shoulders, he paused.

“What?” She put her hand to her face, expecting him to say she had something on her nose or something.

“I suppose you don’t get cold?”

She looked wistfully at the blanket, at the comfort it represented. He’d brought it to her. He was beginning to soften, to return to the boy she knew.

“No, I don’t get cold.” She looked away, though why she was embarrassed by admitting it, she had no idea.

“Sorry. Go on. I’ll try to believe you.” He sat, but put the blanket over his legs, then wrapped his arms around his knees.

“Okay. Well. The Agreement was made with The Father, that we would serve him as...angels, for lack of a better word. We are sent to, um, answer some prayers, or to help maintain the illusion of a community so those prayers can be answered by others of our...kind.”

“So are you answering someone’s prayers, or are you here to keep up appearances?”

“I’m here to answer one of your grandfather’s prayers.”

Jamison blinked a few times, then started laughing. Then he laughed so hard he was clutching his stomach. She couldn’t help but smile, even though his laughter sounded a bit manic.

“What’s so funny?”

It took a moment for him to find his breath.

“Haven’t you ever seen his t-shirt? The one that says, ‘God only answers a Scotsman’s prayers. The rest of ye are on yer own?’”

She had to laugh then. “Yes, I’ve seen it. Nurse Harmon won’t let him wear it out of his room. She says it would depress the rest of the patients.”

He laughed again, then he wiped tears from the corners of his eyes. Soon his smile fell from his face.

She realized she’d broken rule number one, again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jamison was getting loopy. He'd think something had been slipped into his water bottle if he hadn't opened it himself.

Was he really buying the idea that Skye was an angel? Did he even believe in God? Of course he’d caught himself praying all the time, just in case, but did he buy it?

When he'd laid his head on his granddad's bed that day, the old man had said it. “She's an angel.” Had she confessed? Had she told Granddad she was there to answer his prayer?

He was positive he didn't want to ask what that prayer was. What if he'd prayed for death? She’d been around for three years. What if he'd been depressed and asked to join Grandma, to get out of a world in which his own daughter returned his unopened letters and treated him like...a monster?

“Skye?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm sorry I called you a monster, before.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“So, tell me. Where are these friends I can’t remember seeing since I came back to Flat Springs?”

She leaned forward and looked him in the eye and willed him to believe her.

“They're getting help. They'll be back.”

“Help?”

“Rehab.”

“Or are their memories getting adjusted?”

“That, too. But they are in rehab.”

“Better than dead, I guess.”

She laughed and leaned back against the wall again. “That's probably a good slogan for any rehab—Better than dead.”

“And Marcus? What happened to him?”

“His assignment was over. He went back. He'll get another assignment.” She was careful to keep her tone unemotional.

“And the explosion?”

“That was just our version of a dust to dust bit. His, um—”

“Body?”

“More like...container—it wasn't needed anymore. We can't just leave them lying around or bury them for someone to dig up and dissect decades from now.”

“Oh. Right.” He eyed her clothes. “What about all the Somerled farms. Why farms?”

“We may as well be productive. There are Somerleds in cities, too. They're just productive in other ways.”

“So, Somerled means the Final Host guys?”

“Well, no. It means ‘called of God,’ actually.”

“But you guys all know each other.”

“Not really, but it wouldn’t be hard to find each other, like if one of us needed help.”

He looked at the power bar on the floor. “You don't eat?”

“Just for show, baby.” She smiled, but he only glanced at her when she answered, like he was judging her honesty, then he’d stare at the floor until he had another question.

“So you don't need the food you produce.”

“Right. We send it all over the place. Disaster zones, that kind of thing. You have no idea how much food gets prayed for.”

“Well, that's cool, then.”

“It's always cool. It's not as if we'd be answering prayers for bad things. Like when someone prays someone else would die or something.”

“Well, if someone's praying for that, they probably don't expect to get what they prayed for.”

“Right.”

He was eyeing her funny again. She couldn't read his mind. How had he so quickly learned how to block her?

“So, how old are you?” He blushed, a darker shade of shadow in the eerie candle light. “I mean, I was kissing you, and you're probably... Oh, man. I don't know.”

“Old like a vampire? Hah! Get real.”

“So old you don't like to admit your age, then.” He looked like he was going to be sick.

He looked around until he found a bucket sitting in the corner, though he didn’t go get it. What a relief. She hated seeing people retch, although it always made her appreciate the fact she’d never need to purge herself that way.

“Age. Right. Well, I don't have a body, so I don't age. All souls are immortal, so there is no accounting.”

“So, how many assignments have you had?”

“Oh, well, that's a better question. Let's see.” She looked into the candle for a minute, counting. “Fourteen.”

“Fourteen lives? You're kidding.” He glanced at the bucket again. She wanted to put it over his head and pound on it.

“Fourteen assignments, not lives. I’m not a cat. Some assignments take more than a year. This assignment’s lasted three. And some took less than a week. So if you ask how long I've been around, I really can't say how many days, total, I've been in this state.”

“This state. You mean, in a container.”

“Yes. Contained.”

“Do you look the same every time?”

She wished. She also wished she didn’t have to answer the question, but she did.

“No.”

Stupid boy. He looked intrigued. Maybe he wasn’t too bright; he was buying her story without any proof. She could be an alien, or a vampire, or any kind of monster a boy his age could imagine.

Jamison looked her over pretty shamelessly. He went to his knees in front of her, running his hands down her arms. Poking her just below her collar bone. Pulling down her cheek to peer into her eye. He even opened her mouth and shined his small blue flashlight down her throat.

She rolled her eyes through it all, but he didn’t seem to care. Then she remembered that she was no longer real to him.

Her cracking teenage heart wasn’t real to either of them, and yet she could almost hear it fracturing, like ice being dowsed with warm water.

“Why do you feel normal?” He sounded like a chatty seven-year-old.

“I have surface tension. Like drops of water drawn together, the stuff I'm made of struggles to stay together. The rest of it is illusion.”

“And what does a Host look like without the container?” There was nothing seven-year-old about his question. He’d tried to make it sound like an innocent question, but he failed; his voice cracked slightly, and he blushed all the way to his blond roots.

“Nothing.” She hoped her firm tone might discourage him.

“Nothing? Invisible?”

“Kind of. We are, but we aren't. It's hard to explain.”

His brows went up. “You took your clothes off before. Why?”

She had hoped he’d have forgotten that detail after being handed all her secrets on a silver platter, but apparently the thought of a naked girl standing behind him wasn’t an easy thing for a seventeen-year-old to forget.

“I thought I could get out the door without you seeing me. But you locked it. I wouldn't have taken off my clothes if I thought you might lock me in with you.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So, take your clothes off again.” He blushed, but managed to look her in the eye.

“You know? I'm going to pass.”

“Oh, come on. You can't really expect me to believe all this stuff about the Final Host if you can't prove it.”

“I read your mind.”

“Not good enough. Aliens can do that. Probably Vampires too.”

All right. So he wasn’t completely gullible. But apparently she was, since she found herself stripping for him—after she’d made him turn around, of course.

***

Jamison tried not to get too excited about Skye taking off her clothes. She wasn’t a real girl so it wasn’t the same. She might be fifty years old. She might be a hundred...or seven. Either way, it was nothing to get excited about. He was only making sure he wasn’t out of his mind, believing his neighbors were a bunch of harmless angels and not a cult of murderers, when everything he’d seen thus far leaned toward the cult thing. Turning his back on her might not even be a good idea.

“Okay, you can look now.” She sounded embarrassed.

He reconsidered for about a hundredth of a second, then turned.

Holy crap, she was gone.

He took a couple of deep breaths and realized he was the only one breathing, so he tried not to breathe so loud. She wasn’t in any of the corners and not under the Indian blanket, since it was puddled on the box. His only company was the heater in the middle of the floor, making crackling noises as it kicked on again.

When you were alone, in a room lit by a candle and a dinky flashlight, and the shadows start moving, it made you sincerely wish someone was there with you.

“Skye?” His whisper sounded silly, but what else could he do? Speak reasonably to an empty room?

“Yeah?” She sounded close.

“Where are you?”

“Right here. In front of you.”

He reached out, but his wrist was caught by an invisible hand. There really was nothing there. His skin was a little bunched up where she held him. That was all.

Wow.

“Keep your hands to yourself, Jamison.”

“I can't see anything. I just want to know what the real you feels like.”

“Can’t you feel my hand?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah but nothing. I feel the same as I did when you could see me. The container is still here. I just reflect what you expect to see.”

“But I expected to see you.”

“I meant, if you didn’t know I was here. You see what you’d see anyway. But that reminds me; what did you think you saw, up in the trees, when Sheriff Cooke pulled you over?” She released his hand and he could sense her moving out of reach.

“What do you mean?” He put his hands in his pockets, for his own sake, as much as hers. When there was someone invisible standing in front of you, you just couldn’t help wanting to reach out and...define them.

“It looked like you could see me, that’s all. I was sitting up in the branches that connect over the road, and when I laughed, you looked up, like you could see me. But that was impossible.”

Jamison looked at the floor and shrugged. How could he tell her how often he thought about that laugh and not sound stupid? How could he tell her how it had made him feel that first time, in the school parking lot, when it had felt like...music? Like...bliss? His mom talked about bliss all the time; chocolate was bliss, a hot bubble bath was bliss, rocking him to sleep when he’d been small—bliss.

That’s what Skye’s laugh had felt like to him, bubbling up his spine, spreading chills into his head. It was like the way he felt when he drove under that arch of branches. If he heard her laugh that day, he probably just looked to the other source of those feelings—the gateway to home.

How could he tell her any of it and still keep her prisoner?

Then something else occurred to him.

“What do you mean, you laughed?” He would have stared her down, if he could tell where she was. “You were up in the trees doing what? Watching me?”

“Yes, well, I, um, I felt you getting nearer, thought you were coming home, but then you just stopped and I wanted to find out why. So I slipped off my clothes and went out to look.”

He pushed aside the image of her stripping before she headed out the door to look for him and tried to keep his mind on his own question.

“So you saw that I’d been pulled over, and you laughed.”

“No. I was laughing at what I saw in Dwain Cooke’s memories, about how many times he’d been pulled over when he was young. I was trying to dredge up those memories so he’d have a little pity on you, that’s all.”

Yeah, that wasn’t good. It was kinda cool and all that she could feel him coming closer—okay, if they’d have been a real couple, that would have been way cool—but the idea that she could dredge up memories, and make someone relive them, made him want to run very far away.

“Do you suppose you could make me a promise, and never break that promise?” He looked at the boarded up window, imagining the field beyond.

“Do you suppose you could trust me to keep that promise?”

He shrugged. “Promise me you won’t do that to me. Promise you won’t ever use my memories against me like that.”

“I promise,” she whispered.

A chill ran up his back and he wondered if it was because of the whisper, or because it had come from an unexpected direction. It was as if she had stretched up and given her solemn promise right next to his ear.

Then he felt her behind him. Her unseen arms wrapped around his middle and she hugged him, gently but firmly.

“I promise,” she repeated.

He placed his arms over hers and held her there.

“What about my prayers, Skye? Can they not be answered now? Now that I know?”

“I don't know. Maybe not. I mean, if you've figured out that you can sometimes get what you pray for, you might end up using prayers more like wishes, only you'll never know which will be granted. Still, it’s not quite fair. Once you know the truth, it’s not like acting on faith.”

“And what if I wished you were just a normal girl and the tree house had never been here?”

“I'd say, be careful what you wish for.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

As Skye walked around the end of the fence, she realized something was very wrong.

It was bad enough she felt disappointed. She’d suggested, verbally, that Jamison let her go home and they continue their discussion the next day. He’d agreed, on the condition she would prevent Lucas from ever erasing his memories, or trying to read his mind again. He’d settled for her promising the first. She didn’t know how Lucas would feel about it, but she would fight and argue and appeal to a higher authority if necessary.

And Jamison let her go.

In spite of how badly he’d managed to scare her, if only for what might happen to him, she’d been disappointed.

Ridiculous. What else had she wanted to do up there? Play house?

Aaagh! She had wanted to do just that!

But as she neared her front door, it was some other dread that stole over her.

Raised voices?

Impossible.

Her hand couldn’t seem to turn the knob, but it didn’t matter; someone did it for her.

Jonathan frowned and dragged her through the door. Her boot caught on the rug, but she regained her balance.

It would have been funny, having this man act like the angry father when his teen daughter stumbles through the door in the middle of the night. But he was not her father, couldn’t possibly be worried that something had happened to her, or be angry that she’d somehow broken her word.

Implied age had nothing at all to do with their relationship. They all had their own duties to fulfill. None of them would fail. What was there to worry over?

“Jonathan?”

He shook his head, as if he didn’t dare open his mouth for fear of what he might say. His hair flopped back and forth and as always, she tried not to stare at it.

“What is it? Were you worried about me?” She was confused, touched, but even to her own ears, she sounded more like the belligerent teenager she appeared to be. “I’m sorry if you were.”

“Tell her!” Jonathon looked over her shoulder and released her so she could turn and see who he was talking to.

Lucas stood in his whitest robes, blocking the entrance to the rest of the house. His arms weren’t folded, as they usually were when he was playing the part of Leader. Instead, they hung limp and lifeless at his sides. She had no doubt she could push him out of the way with one finger.

His brow wasn’t its usual stretch of smooth good humor; it was twisted as if with heartache. Had she somehow betrayed the man? Or Jonathan? They both acted as if she’d done just that.

She had suggested they not worry about her, not to come looking. What else had she done? Nothing but promise Jamison she’d stop Lucas from touching his memories again. That was all.

“Tell her, Lucas.”

“What is it? Have I done something...wrong?”

Lucas winced.

Dear Lord! She couldn’t have! If she’d truly sinned, in her present state, there was nothing to save her. She wouldn’t be allowed back Home.

But wait! She couldn’t have sinned. It was in The Agreement, that they’d be incapable of sin...of breaking...unbreakable rules.

She’d been rude? That was it? If one could be barred from Home for being rude, it was a wonder anyone returned at all. The Final Host would prove to have made the wisest choice possible if everyone were to be judged so harshly.

“Lucas please.” Jonathan’s voice was now soothing. “She’s jumping to terrible conclusions. Tell her, so she can stop thinking the worst. So she can decide.”

Jonathan had read her correctly. There was nothing so terrible than the thoughts crashing in her head.

“Yes, Lucas. For someone immune from fear, I’ve entertained enough of it tonight to make me want to run Home and let someone else finish my duty.”

“Well, Skye, that’s exactly what you need to decide. And you’ll have to make that decision on your own. We’ve been told not to interfere.”

“Told not to interfere with what?”

“Your choices. Your assignment. Your...choices.”

“What he cannot seem to tell you, my friend, is that he must stay his hand and his tongue where you are concerned. Do not seek our council. We cannot give it. You will have shelter here. You may move among us. But you will keep your own council, Skye.”

“Shunned? I’m to be shunned? Are we suddenly Amish, Jonathan?”

He ignored her.

“Tell me, Skye. How does Jamison Shaw remember things that have been removed from his mind?” Lucas looked both worried and intrigued. Mostly worried.

“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. At least he won’t tell me while he worries the knowledge will be used against him, that his mind will be...cleaned again.”

“Is it not that you have reminded him?”

That set her back on her heels.

“You think I would—or even could—tell him what we didn’t want him to remember?”

“Have you not broken an unbreakable?”

“Did you listen to the whole conversation? If you had, you’d know that I have no idea how he was able to remember.” She felt like someone had been listening in on a private phone conversation...or reading her diary! How dare they eavesdrop! She’d told them not to!

How could she be so emotional?

She knew that in reading others, Jonathan was capable of reflecting the emotion he read. In all likelihood, it was not Jonathan who was upset with her, but Lucas. He was usually a jovial soul, which proved he emitted a bit more emotion than other Somerleds. So it stood to reason he was capable of the opposite; Lucas fumed, so Jonathan had exploded for him.

Then he’d read the fear in her and done what Jonathan did best, soothed her.

“I’m sorry. This just doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong. I am being punished?”

“Truly, I’m not sure.” Lucas put a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Perhaps you were mistaken. Perhaps it was only my suggestion you heard, that you not worry about me or come looking for me, that it was important that you do not.”

“Silly Skye.” Lucas finally had a slight smile for her. “Your suggestion is how we knew where you were. We listened only for a moment before young Jamison blocked us out.”

“Talented boy, for a mortal.” Jonathan smiled too.

“I worry about what might have given him such talents. And where those talents will lead him.”

While in Jamison’s mind, Lucas must have come across those Texas experiences. And though she was tempted to ask, she felt it might jeopardize the promise she’d made Jamison.

“So, let me get this straight, Lucas. You are allowed to speak with me, but not influence me.” She looked from Lucas, to Jonathan, and back.

“Exactly. See? We are not Amish.”

“No influence. No interference? No advice.” She couldn’t hide her smile.

“What are you thinking?” Lucas lost his humor.

“That I’m not being punished at all. It’s a teenager’s dream, actually. Pleasant parents.”

“Aren’t you going to ask the obvious question here?” Jonathan ignored the sharp look he got from Lucas.

Skye sifted through their conversation, back to the beginning.

“Have you ever heard of this happening before?”

“There it is. The question.” Jonathan raised his brows and waited.

“Well?” Skye crossed her arms and waited for the ball to drop.

“We’re not allowed to answer. It might influence your choices,” Lucas growled in Jonathan’s direction.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“You may ask. We will answer if we can,” Jonathan said simply.

“If I wanted to go Home...now...before completing my assignment, would I be allowed? And has anyone ever done so?”

“Do you want to go Home?” Jonathan looked surprised.

“She wants answers, Jonathan, and thinks she can only get them there.”

“You’re right. I want answers. And now I can’t ask the questions.”

“It depends on whom you ask.”

Lucas gave Jonathan a sharp look. She wasn’t the only one toeing the line that night.

“No advice,” Lucas roared.

“Oh, was that advice?” Jonathan raised an innocent brow.

Lucas shook his head, his eyes closed as if praying for patience. “Maybe I’ll be told to shun you next, brother.”

“Maybe you will.” Jonathan grinned and winked at Skye.

Lucas backed against the corner and rolled his shoulders into the hall, his robes billowing from his quick exit. He disappeared through a doorway.

“Be careful, Jonathan. I’d hate for someone to be truly punished because of me.”

Jonathan shook his head then quickly followed Lucas’s path, as if summoned, leaving Skye feeling uncommonly, and completely, alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The substitute for English class was the principal’s secretary. She looked scared to death of the copy of Lost Horizon sitting in the middle of the desk. After she pushed it aside with her pencil, she picked up a stack of papers and tapped them on the desk.

“Jamison Shaw, come here.”

He swung his butt out of the chair and went to the front.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Don’t be sassy. Take this.”

He refrained from explaining that where he was from, it was polite to use “sir” and “ma’am.” Instead, he clamped his lips shut and took the envelope she held out to him.

“Someone pass these papers out. You, Rachel is it?”

Miss Phillips hurried to the secretary and took the pile of essays from her. Her big smiles alternating with sympathetic shakes of the head announced each grade before the students could see for themselves. The sub shouldn’t have given them to a student to pass around, but the woman probably couldn’t put the names to faces.

“Open up your novels and read for the rest of the class period.” She never looked up. Stupid woman; the whole class could have walked right out and she wouldn’t have noticed or wouldn’t have cared. She had better things to do, it seemed, like trying to hack into Mr. Evan’s computer.

Rachel looked at him and shrugged. No paper for him.

The envelope in his hand was addressed, “Return this to Mr. Jamison Shaw, first period.”

He broke the seal. Black ash smeared across his desk. Digging through the mess, he found an unburned section. His name, in his own handwriting, sat next to a large red ‘A’.

Good ol’ Mr. Evans. Fear and fight, buddy.

Skye came in late.

“Miss Somerled, take roll.” The sub didn’t even look up.

Optimum Suggestor, at it again?

He raised an eyebrow at her as she passed his desk.

She gave him a wink...a wink that ricocheted around in his chest like a sonar ping in a submarine.

Ho. Ly. Crap.

He had planned to have the whole ‘Host’ thing worked out before morning, but the second his feet hit the porch, it was all he could do to make it to his bed before crashing and burning. Then he’d slept as if he hadn’t slept for a couple of days, which he hadn’t.

So, on the way to school, he’d gone over the facts. She was as good as a ghost, surface tension or whatever aside, he hadn’t technically kissed her, or held her hand, or hugged her. Basically, he’d been giving a lot of PDA to a sheet, not the She-Casper underneath. It wasn’t as if she’d really felt it, he’d told himself.

So technically, there wasn’t any relationship to worry about. The sheet would be blown to bits one day, after his granddad’s prayers were answered. Or so he suspected. Then she’d pop up in a different town, the only thing unchanged about her would be her clothes and the crowd she would live with. If he passed her on the street, he’d never know it. She might even come back as an old woman.

Like the chick from Shangri La, Lo-Tsen, suddenly her true age.

Ew. Better not to think about that.

No, he was fine. He hadn’t been making out with a murderer, at least. That was good. And his granddad was safe with her. His mom was safe living next door to them. Everything was better.

Until she’d showed up that morning, looking as Skye as ever. No wrinkles, no age spots. No new face. Just the Skye-face that he spent all his free time waiting to get a glimpse of.

And then she’d winked.

He knew her well enough to suspect she’d “suggested” herself out of a tardy; she knew him well enough to know what he was accusing her of, without needing to read his mind. It was a soft spot. He loved having someone close enough to “know” him, to communicate with without talking, like his grandparents used to do.

Too bad it couldn’t and wouldn’t last.

The bell rang, and none too soon. Every time he picked a passage and started reading, it was about the woman, Lo-Tsen. And he could only picture Skye, trapped in a perfect prison, wanting to get out.

Did she ever think of getting out?

Was there an out?

As he gathered his crap from the desk and shoved it in his backpack, he pictured himself asking her, then imagined her answering like the Conrad character from the novel: Who would ever want to leave paradise?

Jamison looked for white in the hallway and found her near the main door. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him outside, over onto the dying autumn grass.

She looked around and curious kids turned away.

“You’ll wear yourself out, with all that suggesting,” he teased.

She smiled, but briefly.

“I need your help.”

“Sorry?”

“I need you to skip the rest of your classes today. I’ll fix your attendance. Will you do it?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

For all he knew, her only problem in life was his granddad, and the occasional kidnapper next door.

“I need to visit another Somerled farm.”

Well, that didn’t sound fun at all. What if there were Lucas-types there who wouldn’t take kindly to him knowing exactly what they were?

“What has this got to do with Granddad?”

“Nothing, actually. I can’t explain now, but I need to get to one, and soon, before word spreads, or...or...I don’t know. I just need to get to one. Will you help me find one?”

“Skye, honey. It wouldn’t be hard. I’m sure we can find one online.”

“We don’t do online.”

“I know you don’t. But there are all kinds of conspiracy theorists out there who would keep tabs on them, I mean you, I mean—”

“You mean, us.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” It made him uncomfortable, lumping her in with a bunch of nameless, faceless...containers. “There’s a computer in the library we can use.”

Five minutes later they had the addresses of every known Somerled community, and some people who were suspected of being Somerleds incognito.

“Mennonites, probably.” Skye tapped the screen where the report read “black clothing.” “They call us Mennonites in White, and they’re called Somerleds in Black. People are foolish.”

“Well, where do you want to go first?”

“To check on Kenneth. Then let’s hit this one.” She circled an address on the short list they’d printed out. It was two hours away, at least, unless she was up for giving highway patrol officers some suggestions.

Jamison headed to the Recovery Center, to pay his namesake a visit and swear the old bugger to secrecy.

Skye stayed at the school for a few minutes, to suggest they both be pardoned for being absent the rest of the day, then she’d meet him at the center.

The morning was chilly, even though the sun had had a couple of hours to warm things up. There were still a few spots of morning dew on the sidewalk as Jamison headed past the cheery flower gardens that had to be as medicated as the patients; they showed no fear in the face of the coming winter though it was obvious some would not make it through to spring.

Just like Granddad, if they didn’t come up with a new plan soon.

The med-carts were humming, and by the looks of some of the cups, some of these poor folks were taking thirty different drugs a day. His granddad probably demanded whisky to get them all down. And oh, was Jamison glad he wasn’t the one to tell him he couldn’t have it.

Nurse Harmon probably enjoyed making him take the meds without.

Speak of the devil.

Nurse Harmon walked into room 124 and Jamison hurried so he wouldn’t miss the fur flying.

At first he thought he’d entered the wrong room and started backing out. There was no bed against the lighted headboard, no tartan blanket tossed over the back of the chair.

The nurse plucked some tissues from their box and honked her nose into them. She was crying.

“Cranky old bastard, anyway,” she muttered.

That’s when Jamison’s chest collapsed, crushing his heart into his spine, leaving no room for lungs, let alone air.

His granddad was dead?!

He grabbed his cell, turned it on, then choked on frustration. Why the hell hadn’t his mom tried to call him, leave a message, text, anything? What the hell was she thinking? That she was the only one who had the right to care about Granddad? That everyone else’s emotions were second to hers?

“Damn you!”

The nurse turned, her eyes wide.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. Not you.”

“Damn right, not me. What are you doin’ in here? Your mama forget something?”

“So, she was here?”

“This morning. You’re welcome to look around, but I haven’t seen anything of your grandpa’s.”

Jamison could feel his legs giving out.

“Do you mind if I just sit for a minute?”

“Go ahead. Don’t mind me.”

He nodded and lowered himself into the only chair in the room. It was cold. The whole room was cold.

Granddad! Why couldn’t he have had one last conversation with him? Why couldn’t they have talked about angels?

Skye would be coming. He’d have to break it to her. Anything would be easier than coming in and finding him gone, and facing the fact your mom was a selfish, thoughtless bitch who hadn’t even tried to call.

Mom had been gone before he was up. Had she known Granddad was in bad shape? Had she chosen to not take him along? Did she think he’d be in the way?!

So unfair.

He was angry and he was aware all that anger was being focused on his mom, but wasn’t it all her fault? All of it?

Suddenly he couldn’t wait to face her, to unload on her, but Skye would be coming and she’d need him. Mom might not, but Skye did. If only for a little while.

Wait.

Where was Skye? She should have only been a couple of minutes behind him. She couldn’t have...gone!

Was that why she had wanted to get to another farm so quickly? Because if she stuck around Flat Springs they’d put her in the middle of their sadistic circle and blow her to Heaven?

Did she want out?

The last Exploding Ceremony had happened at three in the morning. If it had to happen in the dead of night, the Somerleds couldn’t have sent her away already. They at least had to wait until night.

He and Skye had some time.

He couldn’t bring back his grandfather, couldn’t change the fact that he hadn’t been there for him, at the end. But he could be there for Skye.

And what if she did opt out of Shangri-La?

Of course she wouldn’t. He could never even suggest it to her. “I know I kidnapped you and threatened you, but why don’t you stick around for a while?”

Yeah right.

But he tucked the idea away, inside that box in his head, where he kept all uncomfortable thoughts for another day.

Jamison could sense her coming down the well-mopped hall. That tightness in his chest slacked off. His lungs inflated, his heart began to beat again, and all because she was there. How was he ever going to go on without that?

He slid into the hallway and held out his hands to her.

She smiled suspiciously and took them.

“What is it?”

“He’s gone, Skye. Granddad’s gone.”

His cell vibrated. A text.

“Shame on you, son.” The nurse bopped him on the head with a barf bowl—empty, thank goodness. “You’ve gone and made it sound like he died or somethin’.” She smiled at Skye—everyone always smiled at Skye, except guys with conspiracy theories who think she’s an alien. “He’s gone over to the hospital for a couple of days for some treatments. They’ve gotta keep him in a controlled environment for a little while, that’s all.”

The big woman took her pink plastic things and walked away, muttering “I’ll show ‘em a controlled environment. Send his raggedy Scottish ass back here and I’ll control him jus’ fine.” Nurse Harmon chuckled, low and throaty. Granddad probably liked that laugh.

“I need to sit down again.” He walked to a chair and fell into it, bruising the back of his thigh on the hardwood arm, but unable to care. “I thought he was dead. She was in there, sniffling. She said my mom was in there this morning, getting his things.” He felt his face get hot. “She didn’t tell me they were moving him.”

“Did you check your phone?”

“Yeah, I did.” He pulled it out, opened the text.

Come 2 the hospital when u get out. Daddy’s going 2 b here for a while.

It didn’t matter. He could go home and find a note stuck on his bedroom door saying “I’ll be moving Daddy to the hospital this morning. Come if you can,” and he would still be furious.

“Come on. Let’s get over to the hospital. I need to have a little chat with my mother.”

“I thought she didn’t like to be called Mother.”

“She doesn’t.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Jamison looked like he had the night before, when he’d been determined to do who-knows-what to find the truth about his friends. Skye was wary of taking his hand, but consoled herself in the fact that Jamison wasn’t mad at her this time.

At the hospital’s front desk the volunteer didn’t want to tell Jamison which room his granddad was in. Hippa rules, or something, she claimed. She had to call ahead and ask if it was all right to let them up. By the time they got off the elevator on the fourth floor, Jamison was mad at everyone.

Standing in front of her son, Raging Bull, Lori Shaw held out her arms. She should have run screaming.

Skye stood on the battle front. She had no choice; her fingers were entwined with Jamison’s and she didn’t want to draw his attention by removing them.

The fight, however, lasted less than a minute.

“Why didn't you tell me they were moving him? I went to the Recovery Center and his room was empty and the nurse said you'd been there this morning to get all his stuff. I thought he was dead!”

“Oh, Jamie!” His mom fell on his neck and sobbed. “I looked for you last night after Skye's family came looking for her, 'cause I'd forgotten to tell you, but I couldn't find you. I sent you a text. I thought you wouldn't check your messages until you were out of school.”

Unaware of the size of spoon, Lori fed her son enough guilt to shut him up for the rest of the day. If he’d never taken Skye to the tree house or skipped school, there would have been no miscommunication.

She and Jamison donned masks and gowns to get into the section of the hospital where Kenneth was staying, and even then they had to speak to him through a clear plastic wall. Jamison told him they'd come see him again when he felt better. He blinked a couple of times and moved a finger, but then he was out again.

His mom never asked why they were out of school so early in the day. She finally looked up when Jamison said he was going with Skye to another Somerled compound and wouldn't be back until really late.

She said it was best, that she'd be staying at the hospital late anyway, then hugged them both and went to the restroom. She probably needed to cry in peace.

Taking a road trip with Jamison was like riding home with the football team, after they'd lost “the big one” to a team on the other end of town. He rarely turned his head in her direction, and any questions she posed got only a grunt or an ‘I don’t know’ in reply. His face was flat and emotionless, even though she knew a mighty storm was raging behind it.

Skye considered getting a bus ticket for the return trip.

She didn't actually need Jamison to come with her, but it was nice not to be going alone. She might see a familiar face. After all, Marcus had frequently dealt with Somerleds in this area. But for the most part, she felt like a vampire, going to see other vampires. They were her own kind, but that was where it ended. There wasn’t much of a possibility of danger, though. No one would try to eat her mortal escort for a snack.

Surely.

They made good time without Jamison speeding too much. The gas station attendant couldn't stop staring, even while talking to them. He must have never seen a Somerled with a non-Somerled before.

Around one o’clock they started up the canyon. Half an hour later, they entered a glorious valley and Skye was grateful for the ability to appreciate the surreal shades of green that deepened with every mile. Vast fields of crops, and stock yards bursting with livestock lined both sides of the road up to the ranch house. The earth was so moist that their tires kicked up very little dust on the unpaved driveway that took them to the expansive front lawn. Jamison parked at the edge of the grass and they both climbed out.

A woman came out on the porch, wiping her hands, smiling at Skye, then frowning at Jamison.

“Don't worry, Jamison. They have no reason to mess with your memory,” Skye whispered across the car roof.

“Yet,” the woman hollered. “No reason yet.”

When it looked like Jamison was going to jump back in the car and drive away, the woman started laughing and waved them inside.

Skye was happy to see another Somerled woman. Already she’d proven friendlier than the one in Flat Springs.

The woman didn't wait at the door for them, so Skye opened the screen and walked inside, dragging a reluctant Jamison behind her. The entry was dim, in spite of the hour. More generous light and the sounds of activity drew them to the back of the house.

Four women, besides the one who had greeted them, stood around high wood tables, cutting up pumpkins, separating the seeds, chopping up the sides. They were covered in orange up to their elbows, their short shirtsleeves rolled up like army recruits, their white aprons only white around the edges. Their hair was pulled up tight and covered with bandanas. All that was missing was a cigarette hanging between their lips and they'd look like a nineteen-forties ad for Uncle Sam, only they weren't manufacturing guns or ammo.

“Be careful.” One woman grinned. “Lanny reads minds whether you want her to or not. If you've got something to hide, better get out of the valley.”

The others laughed, including the one Skye suspected was Lanny.

Skye tried to picture the list of Somerled communities in her mind, trying to remember how far away the next one was.

“Too late, missy. I already know why you've come. No need to leave until we've got you straightened out.”

Lanny was still grinning. The others had stopped laughing and exchanged looks that made Skye change her mind—she was grateful there weren’t more females at home.

***

“You there.”

Jamison looked around. Lanny was glaring straight through him, making him feel as transparent as a ghost. He put a thumb up to his chest and hoped it wasn’t shaking.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Get out of my kitchen. Go help the menfolk, if you can. We’ll deal with this one. Don’t need you in here, mucking things up.”

“No.” Jamison didn’t know where his sudden abundance of balls came from. He was just happy they’d arrived. “I’m not going anywhere without her. She’s not going anywhere without me.”

“Aw, look ladies. Ain’t he sweet? A regular Romeo.”

“More like a dog in love with a cat.” The tallest woman wiped her arm across her face. Jamison was glad the arm was orange, and now, so was the woman’s cheek.

Lanny laughed, and Jamison knew she’d read his thoughts.

He tried what he’d used on Lucas the night before, focusing on other things.

The road, the white line down the middle, the drying grasses along the side...the road, the white line, the grasses...

Lanny laughed again, then stopped like she’d hit a brick wall. “Son, I told you to get...out...of my...kitchen.”

He stepped forward and took Skye’s hand and someone tisked.

“Come on, Skye. Let’s get out of here.” Over his shoulder he called, “Sorry, to have bothered you.”

Thankfully, Skye didn’t resist. In fact, if he’d have gotten out of her way, she probably would have beaten him to the front door. She seemed genuinely frightened, and even if she had always believed she had nothing to fear, that Somerled woman had gotten to her too. The fact that Skye should be able to trust these people, but didn’t, creeped Jamison out big time.

Finally they were out the door and headed across the lawn, but they froze in unison.

The car was gone.

With all the Stephen King movies he’d seen, Jamison thought the smartest thing to do would be to run like hell. Screw the car. Knowing how these people could manipulate the police, he’d never see his old beater again, no matter what he reported; he had the feeling Lanny’s suggestions, in the mind of the local sheriff, would drown out Skye’s any day.

His cell vibrated. Did he dare look down long enough to read it?

He and Skye stood back to back. No Somerleds in sight. He opened the message and read it out loud.

“Daddy’s asking for u. Hard time w/ treatment. Are you far?” His stomach lurched.

Skye squeezed his hand. “Oh, I shouldn’t have left, or brought you with me. And now there’s no car.”

Jamison couldn’t fall apart. He needed to get home. He’d explain to these people that he had no time for their Twilight Zone games. Leaving Skye behind wasn’t an option, he didn’t care if they were Somerleds or a farm full of harmless Amish. He wouldn’t leave without her. Besides, Granddad would be as happy to see Skye as he would to see Jamison.

“Skye?”

“Yeah?”

“Is there any way you can, um, like, transport yourself to the hospital from here?”

She snorted. “No. No beam-me-up-Scotty-tricks up my sleeve. And even if I could, I wouldn’t just leave you here.”

“It’s not like they’re dangerous, though. Right?”

“Who knows? They might try to take your memories, drop you on a corner somewhere.”

“Not very Christian.”

“Funny.” She looked up at the house. “I have no idea what their primary duties are. I can’t guess what they can or can’t do. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t kill you. Does that make you feel better?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. I thought that Lanny woman might have been considering it when I wouldn’t get out of her kitchen.”

His phone vibrated again.

Jamie, can you come?

He typed out his reply, sick that he couldn’t tell his mom what she wanted to hear.

Sorry mom. We’re hours away. Tell him we’ll be there by morning.

Jamison prayed it was true.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

As they walked to the drive leading around the South end of the house, he didn’t look at Skye, but held her close to his side, to reassure them both that neither was alone. For Granddad’s and Skye’s sake, today he would fear and fight.

A large white barn was set far back from the house, and like the house, was built upon its own rise. Two dual-wheeled pickups were backed up to the open doors and a line of men, all dressed in white, led from each truck into the wide opening. While he and Skye made their way up the rise, large sacks were passed down the line into the building.

Between sacks, the men looked and pointed, but the work continued.

One man, standing in the rear of a truck, straightened as they approached.

“You’re Skye.” The man smiled warmly and Jamison was almost tempted to relax, but not quite.

“Yes.” Skye looked up, wary.

“I’m Buchanan. I worked with Marcus each fall.” He looked over at Jamison and frowned.

“I’m Jamison Shaw.”

The man’s frown changed from displeased, to confused. “Kenneth’s grandson?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he still among us?”

Jamison thought the guy could have been a little more tactful, but he was glad the man knew his granddad; it would be easier now to convince them to give them back their car and let them go.

“Not for long, sir. We need to get back right away. He’s asking for us.” Jamison held up his phone as proof.

A young Somerled, probably around their own age, or supposed to appear their own age, came around the truck. “Here you go, Uncle Bu.” He tossed a set of keys to Buchanan and merged into the line of men. Jamison’s red carabiner hung with the keys.

“I’m sorry, son. It’s not for me to say. You’ll have to speak with our leader. Or at least Skye will.” He turned toward the young kid. “Shawn, show Skye to the...library.” To Jamison he said, “Take the boy’s place, Jamison. Let’s see if you’re half the man your grandfather thought you would be.”

Jamison looked at Skye. She seemed to have come to the same conclusion; if they were going to get out of there, they’d have to play the game. Even Buchanan couldn’t help them. And they had to think of Granddad.

“I’ll be fine, Jamie. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I told my mom to tell Granddad that we’d be to the hospital by morning.” He said that more like an announcement, to anyone who was listening, or might give a rat’s ass.

He headed toward the back of the truck and passed Shawn. He suspected, since Shawn was technically called of God to do something or other, it was probably his own shoulder that stretched out to knock into Shawn’s. Jamison acted as if he’d felt nothing. Shawn laughed, then laughed more when he put his arm around Skye’s shoulder to lead her away.

Jamison was amazed at his own reaction. Fear and fight morphed into simply, fight, but he wouldn’t. And as he took his place in the gap left by the too-handsome-to-be-believable teen angel, fight morphed into don’t drop the freaking bag and embarrass your granddad.

Fear didn’t return for an entire minute, until he heard a familiar laugh sneak out the back door as Skye was led inside.

“Buchanan?”

“Yes, son?”

“I don’t suppose your leader is a woman?”

“Yes, son.”

***

Skye was petrified as Shawn led her down a long hall toward the sound of Lanny's laughter.

“Oh, don't worry, cousin. She can't harm you, can she?”

Skye stopped and looked deep into the boy's eyes. “I don't know. Can she?”

He just laughed and pulled her along.

“I guess I should warn you, though. More than a few of our cousins have been drawn here and not returned to their own communities.”

“You mean they chose to stay?”

“I didn't say that, now, did I?”

He slapped her on the back and the momentum pushed her into a large white room. When she spun around, Shawn was gone and the door was closing. She reached for a handle, but there wasn't one.

“Hey!” She beat on the door, then pushed her ear flat against it. Shawn's laughter diminished quickly. Joking. He was joking. He had to be.

Skye took off her shoes out of habit. The carpet was white enough to be painful and she wasn't going to be the one to soil it. It was so deep and thick her feet bounced, as if she were walking on tiny fleece springs.

Even the air was...soft. Creamy wallpaper with velvet swirls covered the walls. Fine chairs with oval backs were upholstered in silk stripes, white on white. Their wood bases were intricately carved, the white paint thick, shiny and flawless. Mirrors on the walls reflected other mirrors, their beveled edges broadcasting and multiplying the sunlight filtered through endless layers of sheer fabric that covered floor-to-ceiling windows. The curtains were raw silk and their natural flaws...uniform.

A desk the size of a bed spread along the final wall. The legs matched the smaller chairs, the top was white and off-white granite with golden flecks winking from its depths. Its surface reflected the chandelier, a work of art; egg-sized crystals, the shape of fleur de lis, were suspended in the pattern of a giant chrysanthemum, and the spaces between them were filled with the sharp reflections of a million prisms.

It would have been Heaven itself if not for the woman seated behind the desk in a tall wing-backed chair of white leather. She'd changed into formal robes, much like Lucas’s, and waited patiently while Skye took her fill of the room.

Couldn't be done.

Skye closed her eyes and committed it all to a memory she hoped she would be able to keep. The image couldn't do the room justice, even while she stood in the center of it.

“Skye.”

“Ma'am?”

“Sit.”

Skye chose the seat away from the door.

“Not paranoid, surely.”

“Not trusting, ma'am, of a people who would steal someone's car.”

“Steal? I beg your pardon! You know better—”

“Do I? I'm not sure I know much of anything lately. Not much could surprise me now.”

Skye could feel the woman probing at her memories of the last few days. Having never felt the need to shield her thoughts before, she was helpless to stop her.

“I see. And the explosives?”

Skye was surprised at the first question, then like a gift dropped into her lap, she suddenly knew who—or what—she was sitting across the desk from. Lanny was a Primary! Skye would’ve never imagined it, so the information must have been offered by the Primary herself.

Skye had heard of them, of course, and had even hoped that one day her path would cross one. When she'd first met Lori Shaw she'd been reminded that there were females whose sole purpose in life, and happiness, revolved around the safety and happiness of others.

And this abrupt woman was one of them. She didn't lead these Somerleds, she cared for them.

“I care for all, missy. What about the explosives?” Lanny's voice wasn't as gruff as it might have been, had they been anywhere else in the house. But this was not a room for gruffness.

“It was a bluff. There were antique dynamite boxes in his grandfather’s basement. He never touched them.”

Lanny nodded and closed her eyes, so Skye took another drink of the room.

Lucas had such a “library” at home, passed down from Marcus, of course. There was no doubt about it; the room at home had been designed by a man, this one had the charm and taste of a woman—not just a woman, but a Primary. This Place of Perfection made the one at home less perfect, but both rooms were intended for solemn matters, and a place to sooth—

“The soul.” Lanny cleared her throat.

Skye supposed she should stop thinking so the woman wouldn't have so much to read.

“All right, Skye. It's time to ask what you've come to ask.”

“Sounds like you already know my question.”

“Ah, but do you?”

“I thought I did.”

“Give it a try, then. I can’t ask it for you.”

“Okay. You must already know what Lucas and Jonathan told me, that they are not allowed to interfere, or give me council.”

“I am aware.”

“My question is, do you know of this happening to anyone else? They couldn't tell me.”

“Yes, it has happened to others. But you must look closer.”

“Closer at what?

“At what you just said.”

“I asked if it happened to others.”

“And...”

“And...I don't understand.”

“Remember what you said after the question.”

Skye listened again to her own memory.

“I said, ‘They couldn't tell me.’”

“Exactly.”

“Why?”

“Ah, you see? You've found your question.”

It wasn't a new question. Skye had wondered it since the second Jonathan had walked away.

“Why can't they tell me anything? So they don't influence me?”

“You’ve missed the point, child. When you heard they couldn't help you, you found an alternative.”

Holy cow. “I came looking for you.”

“Ta da. You're smarter than I thought.”

“Okay, so why did I need to come here and get Jamison's car stolen—I mean relocated—and keep us from getting back to his grandfather?”

“Because you needed to know what I know. Do you think The Father doesn't have a plan for everything? And every...one?”

“You're saying Lucas and Jonathan were told not to interfere just so I would come here, that for some reason, The Father wants me to hear something from you?”

“That's it exactly.”

“Why would I need—”

“Indeed. Why would you need? But that's just it. You do. You...need.” Lanny leaned forward and pulled Skye’s hand across the glassy expanse. “You are also important in the scheme of things, Skye Somerled.”

Skye snorted, then was ashamed for such irreverent behavior in the Place of Perfection.

“My dear, you have a choice to make. And that young man, that dog to your cat, has much to do with it, I think.”

“Jamison?”

“Jamison.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jamison passed on the last bag of feed and unlike the rest, who just walked off to another task, he stretched back and forth and swung his arms like windmills to make sure everything would work right again. Those suckers were heavy.

Buchanan walked up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder.

“Thanks for your help, son.”

Jamison was glad he hadn't stumbled beneath the friendly blow.

“No problem.” He looked back at the house. “Doesn't look like she's done yet, what else you got?”

Buchanan laughed. “Come on.”

Jamison followed him like a puppy, but what else could he do? He wouldn't leave without Skye and if he was left alone to worry about her, he'd end up breaking down the door and pissing off that female bull, Lanny. Better to distract himself with a bit of mindless work.

Two hours later, Jamison was standing in waders, butt-deep in a pit filled with things much filthier than mud, helping bring a disgusting and alien blob into the world that he was promised would turn into a calf once it was freed from the disgusting parts. A cow had become mired in a ditch and had begun calving. Thanks to some watchful Somerleds, they'd stopped her from lying down in the muddy water and eventually drowning herself and her offspring. With three men to each side of her and a sling under her belly, she'd been forced to calve standing up, with Buchanan and Jamison standing at the ready, like a couple of big league catchers.

Jamison got the nose end. Buchanan bravely wrapped his arms around the middle. Together they got Junior up out of the ditch and laid him on the grass where Buchanan took over. Jamison considerately walked away from the crowd before he puked.

The unhappy mother was exhausted and the men panicked when she started going down. The men holding the wide sling couldn't prevent it, nor could the men at her sides; her legs simply gave out.

A lone man grimaced as he held her head above the water line, but by the complaints of the cow, it didn't look as if she would put up with that for long. Behind him, others frantically scooped water and dumped it above, but the water just kept coming.

Jamison had an idea.

“Hold her up. Give me just a minute!” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran toward a pile of rubble at the edge of the field, about fifty yards from the chaos. He'd hauled something odd to that pile an hour before, and he'd only remembered it because it had been so out of place there, in the middle of a green field.

It was heavy and he probably looked pretty dumb waddling back with his knees bent and that thing on his head.

Shawn grinned at him and came to assist. Together they plunged the hood of a Volkswagen Bug into the ditch just ahead of the cow like a giant blue dam, embedding it in the soft mud beneath the water.

At first, he didn't think it had worked, but after the six large men crawled out from around the cow's middle, the water level dropped quickly and the man holding the animal's head lowered it to the ground.

Its eyes closed.

After the water had trickled away, four men jumped back in the ditch and started digging around the cow's feet, but to Jamison it appeared they were only rearranging the mud.

The animal's side barely rose and fell.

“She's not bleeding, that I can tell.” Buchanan squatted behind her and patted her side. “All right, Flossie. It's all right now.”

Jamison wondered if cows could understand such things, if coming from a Somerled, of course.

Still, her eyes remained closed. She paused a second between breaths. Jamison did the same.

Behind the wall of men standing along the bank came Junior’s pitiful wail.

The wall turned to see the calf squirming around on the grass, complaining like a spoiled and pissed off brat.

The men scattered as a determined, muddy cow pulled herself up out of the ditch—with very little help from behind—and came to stand over her calf.

“Morris? We're going to need a lot of gravel to line this ditch.” Buchanan frowned at the deep valley of mud. “I guess she's not Dutch.”

“Done.” A short man walked toward the barn.

“Jamison?”

Jamison started. “Yes, sir?”

“Your grandfather would be proud. Quick thinking.”

“Inspired,” someone shouted, and the rest of them laughed.

“Sir?”

“What?”

“What did you mean, she's not Dutch?”

Buchanan smiled. “In Holland, cows won't cross water, so they don't use fences; they just dig small ditches and keep them full. The cows stay in their fields.” He reached between his hip waders and pants and pulled out a familiar key ring, then tossed it over.

“What? All I had to do was save a cow?” Jamison grinned.

“Nah. Skye's ready to go. I'd wash real good before you let her see you.”

***

“Unbelievable.” Jamison assumed he was in mild shock, since he'd said it half a dozen times and he and Skye hadn’t gone yet a mile from the ranch house. An army in white had taken great pleasure in washing him down, with a hose powerful enough to clear dried mud from a four-by-four in ten seconds flat. Only after a few Somerleds had taken their turn and Shawn was reaching for the sprayer did Jamison protest. Then someone had had the brilliant, although belated idea that Jamison be given clean clothes to wear home.

So there he sat, driving calmly out of the Twilight Zone, girlfriend intact, wet clothes in a sack in the trunk which was nearly rusted through already so a little water wouldn't hurt much, and wearing a designer ensemble, straight from the runway of Somerled and Somerled.

It was so not fair that such perfectly fitting clothes could never be worn again—outside his own bedroom, of course. He was definitely going to be sleeping in these.

“Unbelievable.” He took a deep breath and noticed there'd been little comment from the one playing the role of girlfriend since they'd gotten in the car. After all, she was only playing a role.

Or was she?

The road straightened and he was able to take a good look at her.

Her eyes were on the road, unblinking. Her arms were folded with her hands in her armpits, as if she was cold, like Jamison often sat. But she couldn't be cold. She didn't get cold.

He checked the road, then checked her again. She mumbled something.

“What? Skye, what did you say?”

“Unbelievable.”

Skye wasn't mocking him. She didn't even smile. And he suspected she hadn't heard one 'unbelievable' word he'd spoken. When she came out of the house, alone, carrying a box full of bottled pumpkin, she'd noticed his clothes and stopped dead in her tracks.

“Relax,” Buchanan had told her. “He got dirty, not religion.”

She'd looked relieved, smiled in a dazed kind of way when Buchanan had told her he'd be seeing her, then gotten into the car without noticing Jamison opening or closing her door for her. He would have at least liked a smile from her.

Now, he'd settle for a blink.

“Skye, honey? Are you all right? Are you ready to talk about it?”

She shook her head.

“But you're all right?”

She nodded, then blinked a few times before she went back to staring.

And they went on like that for an hour; her staring, “unbelievable” sliding out of his mouth every ten minutes or so. He kept reliving the birth of the calf, the concern on the faces of all those men who had nothing to fear, but feared for a cow and her newborn.

“Unbelievable.”

He'd apparently taken quite a drink from that hose, once someone had turned down the pressure, and now he had to pee.

They stopped at the same gas station as before and he prayed the same gawking kid would have been sent home, but all his luck had apparently been used up at the ranch. The kid could hardly help his customers as Jamison walked through the store in his new white garb.

He couldn't blame him, though. It was pretty widely known that Somerleds didn’t take on new recruits, or converts, or anything. There were no expose shows about a Somerled escaping from their cult or falling in love with someone of a different...fashion persuasion.

Of course, if this kid made the right calls, and made them quickly, there might be a blurry photo of Jamison from the store camera on the cover of some news magazine in the grocery store in a couple of weeks.

Somerleds Now Recruiting. The End Is Near.

When he got back in the car, Skye's face was buried in her hands, as if she were crying, or trying to cry.

“Skye. What the hell happened in that house?” He slammed the steering wheel. The horn beeped and the people walking past the car pretended not to be interested. Or else someone had suggested they not be interested. “I shouldn't have let them take you. I should have demanded our car and gotten you out of there.”

“No, Jamie—Jamison.” She cleared her throat and sat up straighter. She even gave him a smile. “Lanny had all the answers I was looking for, actually. Going there was, um, fated, you could say. I'm just glad you went with me.”

“Oh, so now you're cheerful? Wow, you should sign up for drama next semester. Learn to act.” He took the keys from the ignition. “We're not leaving here until you tell me what's going on. And no giving me suggestions, okay?”

“Okay. No suggestions. For today at least.” She'd mumbled the last.

“Oh, no you don't. I want you to promise you'll never use it on me again.”

She looked at him then—really looked. Her brows tweaked together for a split second, then her face went blank again, and he shivered, like someone had just walked over his grave.

She forced a smile and turned away. A child in the next car had crawled into the driver's seat and was bouncing while trying to turn the wheel back and forth and Skye watched as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“I'm sorry, Jamison. I can't promise that. I have an assignment to do and it may be necessary.” She turned back and looked him straight...in the chin. “I can promise to never suggest you do something you wouldn't mind doing.”

He didn't like it, but there was something in her voice that warned him not to argue with her. Hell, she was probably using a suggestion on him right then, to keep him from arguing.

Well, he could wait and argue later. It wasn't as if she could erase the discussion from his memory; that wasn’t one of her personal tricks. It had been a long day and it wasn’t over yet. Jamison wouldn’t mind waiting.

He’d just helped spare two lives and he was anxious to see what God was ready to do for him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Jamison had never watched darkness fall so beautifully.

The Western horizon was a bright line of mustard that faded up into pink, and then to purple. The distant clouds smeared the colors together and stretched them north to south. The highway took Jamison and Skye straight west, keeping the light from getting out of reach.

The air changed. His ears popped.

The small distraction finally brought him out of his own world and he became aware of another change. It was Skye. That meeting with Lanny had changed her. She wasn't the girl, or the spirit she'd been on the way up the canyon. Something was missing, and he knew it was silly, but he wanted to go back up the canyon and get it, if he needed to.

He finally gave up chasing the setting sun and pulled into a wide turn out, a rest stop of sorts, a swath of gravel next to a creek. There were plenty of boulders to sit on and a small trail that started with a bridge and wound its way into the trees. Twenty feet away the hillside rose abruptly.

Skye got out when he did.

“You need a bathroom again?” She leaned back against the car, unimpressed with the scenery.

He walked around the car to stand in front of her.

“No, I need to talk to Skye again. The Skye I left Flat Springs with. The Skye from my English class. Not the version they gave back to me at the ranch.”

She looked away.

Guilty!

He'd only been exaggerating, but maybe he'd hit on something. Had they given him a replacement?

Only one way to tell, as far as he could see, but then again, he didn't want to look very hard for a better idea.

He kissed her. She felt the same in his arms, moved her lips the same...then stopped and straightened away from him. He didn't want to let her walk away, but he did; he'd held her against her will enough lately. He had no right to even touch her now.

When he finally had himself under control, at least to the point where he wouldn't chase her up the hill and grab her, he turned.

She was seated on a boulder with her feet pulled up, as if the crack in the rock was designed with her in mind. A mermaid draped in white, she stared into the bubbling water as if it were speaking to her. A mermaid. Painfully beautiful. Untouchable. Destined to get away.

And selfish jerk that he was, he didn't want to let her.

***

Skye perched on the large rock and tried to absorb its chill into her. She had to be cold, distant. She had to be the nothingness she'd been before Jamison came to town. She'd keep just a little acorn of warmth in her heart, for Kenneth. He deserved her comfort and he only needed it a short while longer.

But she had to remain cold for Jamison. It would be easier for him that way. He and his mother would have each other for comfort. He didn't need Skye. He would need a real girlfriend soon, and it couldn't be her. No matter what her options, it could never be her.

If Jamison came with one of those choices, it would be so easy!

Pulling away from his kiss had been anything but, since her sensations seemed to mature every hour they spent together. But Lanny’s explanation for those sensations gave her the strength to resist them.

If she hadn’t come to Lanny when she had, she might have ended up just another Gabriella Somerled—wicked, damned, and the only danger to Somerleds on Earth.

She had no idea what she’d tell Lucas and Jonathan when she got home. For now, she just had to change back to the old Skye—not the one Jamison was asking for, but the one before that. There was a reason people didn't want to leave their comfort zones. She'd left hers, somehow, without intending to, but now she was back.

Just as long as he didn't kiss her anymore.

And even if he did, if she couldn't stop him, she could at least refrain from kissing him in return. It seemed to work. No one enjoyed kissing a cold fish, of course. She just needed to be the fish.

When she thought he'd had sufficient time to cool down, she climbed back off the boulder and turned right into him. His hands clenched around her arms, to steady her, then he let go.

She had to remind herself it was a good thing, ignore the tingling in his touch.

“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to kiss you.” He grinned, his teeth glowing white in the dying light. “But I can’t promise of course. I have a...a project I’m working on and kissing you might be necessary.”

She couldn’t help but smile at her own words being thrown back at her.

“I can promise, however,” he said, picking up her hands and kissing the backs of them between words, “that if you ask nicely, I’ll still kiss you against my will.”

She looked at her hands, looking for a difference in the places his lips had touched. She tried not to feel that difference in the bite size areas—

No! Cold fish! She needed to be cold, distant. There was nothing to feel!

She pulled out of his grasp and backed away. He smiled and kept coming.

“Jamison, stop. I don’t want you to kiss me anymore. You’ve already done enough damage.”

He stopped, bending a little at the waist. His mouth dropped open.

She shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t his fault, truly. It was no one’s fault that she faced the choices she now faced. Like she’d told him before, it really had been Fate, or Providence that had taken her to Lanny, not Jamison.

“What have I done, Skye? Tell me. Are you in some kind of trouble because of me? Is it because I kept you up in the tree house?” He walked toward her, his arms out, his palms open as if he needed to convince her he wouldn’t harm her. He knelt at her feet. “Tell me. What is it? Who can I talk to? None of it was your fault!”

She wanted to reach into his hair and pull him toward her, hold him close and take his worries away. But would that be best? Wouldn’t they both be better off if he did believe he had crossed some line, that if he didn’t back away, she’d be punished for it?

She swallowed back the denial wanting to jump from her lips.

“There is nothing you can do now, Jamison. What’s done is done. No one’s fault. Only it has to end. Now.”

Tears lined up in his eyes when he looked at her, and she nearly took it all back and told him the truth. But like many times in the lives of mortals, it was best to get the pain over with so the healing could begin.

“I’ve broken some rules. I can’t break them again.” It could be true. Kind of.

“But if it was my fault—”

“Jamison, you are mortal. You were born to make mistakes.” She took a haughty step back from him. “I was not.”

He stood and searched her face for some emotion. There was none to find.

“I’m sorry just the same.” After a minute, he cleared his throat. “You’ll let me know if there is something I could do, to help?”

The chill in his voice matched her own. She should be relieved, not feeling the urge to bend forward and catch a breath she’d never need, maybe wait for tears that would never come.

“Yes, I’ll let you know. But there won’t be.”

He nodded and started back to the car. He opened her door and left it. He wasted no time climbing in and starting the engine, then just stared forward until she was inside.

He drove fast, but not too fast. She left his memories alone, suggested nothing. That last hour to Flat Springs dragged like two. He never looked her way. She kept her hands in her lap. It was dark when they neared the first Flat Springs exit.

“Home or the hospital?”

She jumped. He’d surprised her, finally speaking.

“Hospital.” Cool and aloof. No apologies. It was her duty to see to Kenneth, she didn’t need to explain herself.

Jamison turned north. When he parked the car there was the tiniest of hesitations, as if he wanted so much to say something before their road trip ended. But before he could, she grabbed the handle and opened her door. He did the same.

She walked quickly to the doors. He fell behind.

He still hadn’t caught up when the elevator doors closed.

A few seconds later, she hit the stop button and backed against the mirrored wall. Deep in the core of her, a shudder began, built, and rolled through her soul. If she were mortal, she’d be howling in pain. Her chest would contract over and over again as she sobbed the air from her lungs and tried to suck it in again.

But she wasn’t mortal.

She stood perfectly still, watching her own reflection, seeing nothing redeeming to speak of, except for a flicker behind her eyes. Maybe, she thought, it was someone waving, pounding, begging for help.

Maybe, she’d make sure the girl inside got what she wanted.

Someday.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jamison had no idea how he’d beaten Skye to Granddad’s room. Mom was asleep on a short couch, clutching the old man’s worn plaid blanket. He knew what the wool would smell like, feel like. He knew it represented more than just the smell and feel of home; it was family, ancestors and offspring alike.

Granddad’s eyes opened a slit, then widened along with his smile when he saw Jamison standing there in gloves, yellow gown, and a mask. After a quick look at the couch, the old man put a finger to his lips and waved him over.

“Dinna wake yer mum. She’s had a right hard day, she has.” The old voice was muffled by the plastic tent that covered him from mid-chest up.

“And what about you? Has your day been hard, too?” Jamison reached for the man’s hand, but it was pulled away.

“Dinna touch me, Jamie. ‘Tis the truth, my very skin screams.” His breathing was labored, as if he’d run up the back stairs and jumped into bed just before Jamison had stepped inside.

He held up his gloved hands. “I won’t touch you. I promise.”

“Auch, my own day’s been a wee rough, as weel, laddie. I don’t ken how folks survive all this healin’.”

“I’m sorry, Granddad. I’m so sorry.”

“Never mind, now. Never ye mind. I’m near to sleep again, Jamie, but I’ll have a promise from ye first.”

“Anything.”

“I’ll have your promise that you’ll forgive yer mither. I ken you’re blaming her for keeping you away, but if she can forgive me my sins, you can forgive her hers.”

Jamison forced a smile, but said nothing.

“I’ll have that promise Jamie. Don’t make me beat it out of ye. I don’t care to show off in front of Skye.”

Jamison stiffened. He hadn’t noticed her entrance. He didn’t like her hearing their conversation, but there was no way he could avoid it.

“I promise, Granddad.”

The old man made him say the whole thing; that he’d forgive his mother.

“There’s a good lad. Ye’re the man I knew ye’d be, Jamie. Remember that. Now, let my wee angel closer.”

Skye stepped forward and took his granddad’s hand in both her gloved ones. He didn’t even flinch!

“Trying to control everyone from the grave, Kenneth? You aren’t in it yet.”

Grandad frowned. “Tell me, angel. How will they fair without me?”

“Without a Bossy Kenneth Jamison? How do you suppose?”

The beautiful wrinkles rolled back to make room for a pleased smile and his eyes closed. As she stood and started to pull her hand away, he dragged it under the plastic tent and gave it a whiskered kiss. “Tell them, Skye. Tell them they sent me the finest.” He let her hand go.

Jamison leaned over. “The finest what, Granddad?”

“The finest angel. The very finest.”

No one moved until they heard a soft snore.

Still snoring. Still alive. Still fighting.

“He’s only doing it for you. You know that,” Skye whispered.

Jamison frowned, tipped his head toward the door, and went out into the hall. Once the door was shut, he unloaded on her as quietly as he could.

“What do you mean, he's only doing this for me? Doing what? Fighting it?”

“Yes, fighting it. He doesn't want to let you down. He thinks you see him as this big tough man and he doesn't want you to realize he can't kick a little thing like cancer.”

“People kick cancer all the time, Miss Somerled. Some of us think life is precious enough to fight for as long as we can!”

“Of course it's precious, Mr. Shaw. I wouldn't be here if it weren't.”

“Really? But you Somerleds think you're too good for it. Can't get your hands—or clothes—dirty with it.” He picked up a cold cup of coffee that someone had left next to a box of tissues and tossed it at her perfectly clean raw clothing. The coffee seemed to stick to it just fine.

“Too good for it? Snobs or cowards? Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.” She folded her arms, ignoring the coffee dripping everywhere. “Don't much like the sound of it, though, do you? Coward. Does it leave a bad taste in your mouth?”

“Don't.” Jamison looked at his granddad's door and grabbed Skye's arm, dragging her down the hall and into a consultation room.

“Tell me, Mr. Shaw.” She tore her arm free and backed away. “What happened back in Texas that makes your nose turn up like that? Is it because you can smell yellow?”

He took a quick step and she scurried around a chair, to put it between them.

“Did you sit by and let someone drag a friend away? Did you try to save him? Or did you hide on top of a tree house and keep your mouth shut?”

The verbal slap shocked him, left him swaying from the impact. He leaned a knee against a table.

She thought he was a coward? After all they'd been through in the last week, hadn't he proven he wasn't one? He'd tried to make up for that night, for letting them take his friends away. He'd done everything he could think of to find out what had happened, to stand up to the Somerleds and call them murderers when he didn't know what might happen to him, whether or not the sheriff would pat him on the head and walk away. He'd made the tape, in case something happened to him. He'd committed all kinds of crimes taking Skye hostage to get the truth. He'd taken her to the other Ranch, stood up to whatever they had in store in order to get her away from there.

But maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe he'd never be able to put Texas behind. Maybe the blood on his hands would never wash away. He knew there were unforgiveable sins. Maybe cowardice was one of them.

A cold tear dripped down his cheek and leapt off. Then another.

The angel knew him for what he was. Hopefully she wouldn't say anything to his granddad. If the man could just remember him as a good boy who once gave him a nice afternoon ride in a pickup truck, he'd settle for that.

“Skye, please.” He reached out to her, and when she frowned at his hand, he dropped it. “Please don't say anything to my granddad about Texas. I never told him anything and I don't want him to worry now. He shouldn’t waste his strength on pointless crap, you know?”

“Just tell me Jamison. Let me help you get through this before I have to leave for good. I've still got time to help you, if you'll just tell me what happened.”

He wanted to sit with her, on the couch, lay his head on her lap and tell her all of it. But she’d changed. She was no longer the girl who’d comforted him that night in her car. She wasn’t the girl he’d kissed. She was only a spirit.

A spirit.

Would telling her what had happened hurt anything? Writing it down, in the essay for Mr. Evans, had made him feel a little better. Maybe saying it out loud would be better still.

He wanted to get out of there, to go where she couldn’t look at him. But he wanted to get it out, so there was nothing left unsaid between them.

He’d just tell her quickly and go.

“Not much happened that you haven't already guessed, I'm afraid. A kid was shot. No, not just a kid...he was my friend. Brody.” He hadn’t said the name for years. “We were just playing basketball at the park. It was still light enough to see the hoop, but barely. We should have just gone home.”

Skye walked around the chair and sat down in it. He couldn’t sit. He needed to be close to the door, just in case.

“We heard a shot. I saw Brody start to go down in front of me. I was hoping he just collapsed ‘cause he was scared, you know? Like he was ducking. But then blood started seeping out of his back and onto my jeans.”

He remembered the stain, wondering how he’d get it out before his mom saw.

“It just kept coming. I couldn't do anything to stop it.” He looked at Skye. “Who knew you couldn't live without blood? It's like a glass isn't a glass if it's empty, you know? Why is that? Why do we stop being just because we've spilled?”

He turned his back on her, checked the distance to the door again. There was nothing blocking his way. He’d never said the rest out loud and he had to keep the exit clear, in case he needed it. The room was teeny. What had he been thinking?

He faced Skye again and sat on the edge of the table where he could see both her and the door. She was the danger now. He was handing her a knife she might decide to put through his heart. But he forced himself to keep going—to test her, and himself.

“Brody shook, before he died, like he was cold. I couldn’t make him warm. I wasn't paying attention to anything else, see? Then there were three guys standing there. I knew them, too. The one with the gun raised it, like he was going to shoot me, but another one said, “Don't bother with The Ghost, man. He ain't worth no bullet. He won't squeal, neither. I know his momma, and he knows what I'll do with her if he talks. Ain't that right, Ghost?”

It was if the kid’s voice had come out of him, and he wanted to throw up until the taste and feel of it was gone.

“And you didn't talk.”

“I didn't talk. Even when Brody’s mother looked into my eyes and asked me who killed her son, I told her I didn't know. I told the cops I didn't know. I told my mom...I was very convincing for a thirteen year old.”

“Why did he call you Ghost?”

“When we moved there, I didn't want to make friends. I was just killing time, waiting to move home again. I tried to blend in and not be noticed. Some idiot called me a ghost once, and it stuck.”

“Could have been worse, I guess.”

“Yeah. Granddad went to school with a kid named Stinky Cunningham. After a while no one remembered what his real name was.”

“So you didn't tell anyone.” She brought him back to the subject.

His eyes felt puffy, dry. He blinked a lot.

“No, I didn't tell anyone. Fear and hide, that's me.”

“I'm sorry about what I said, about you hiding on the tree house. I wanted to push you, see if you could get Texas out in the open. I didn’t touch your memories, I promise.”

“Is that what you were doing? I thought you just wanted to remind me that I'm a coward and I've ruined your...life.”

“You're not, and you haven't ruined anything. You didn't fear and hide in Texas; you feared and protected. There is a big difference. Lost Horizon is not the only book ever written on the subject, you know. The only thing you were wrong about, besides thinking we were murderers, was thinking we are all either hiders or fighters.”

***

With his mom still at the hospital there was only one place Jamison could stand to go. The tree house.

And when he got up inside, he didn't think about anything that had happened up there since he'd moved back to Flat Springs. He went inside his head, opened up what was left of the box he kept his treasures and secrets in, and sifted through the days when his granddad had helped him make the tree house his own.

There had been so few gray hairs then. The famous T-shirt was new and legible—”God answers a Scotsman's prayers, the rest of ye are on ye're own.” He and Grandma had giggled over that for days. She'd had it made along with two others that read, “A Scotsman has God’s ear, so don’t piss me off,” and “Gaelic is spoken in Heaven, English in Hell.”

Jamison rolled himself up in the Indian blanket, closed his eyes, and took that last ride with his granddad, over and over again. They’d talked about Grandma and the scones they would never taste again, the things Jamison’s mom did just like her.

Granddad had lived a good life, except for the lonely years at the end. He’d loved a good woman and she’d loved him back. Even now, in the coma he’d slipped into before Jamison and Skye had left the hospital, he was probably dreaming of a walk in some misty Scottish glen with his sweetheart.

Dreaming. Wishing. Praying.

He’d forgotten to ask Skye what his granddad had prayed for. Maybe he was ready to handle it now, whatever it was. First thing in the morning, he was going to ask her. Then he’d go to the hospital and tell Granddad it was all right if he stopped fighting, that he shouldn’t suffer any longer just for a selfish grandson.

Wind combed steadily through the branches and rocked him to sleep, and he dreamt of plaid wool blankets and sweet warm scones. Like music in the background of his dreams he heard the rustling of dry cornstalks...

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Skye donned her ceremonial garb, then looked at the clock on the wall. 2:45. Almost time.

Kenneth Jamison would never wake from his coma. He had the peace he’d prayed for. Her assignment was finished and she needed to get out of Flat Springs in the fastest bandaid-ripping mode available.

She’d made her choice. She’d stick to The Agreement. After all, if she couldn’t have a life with Jamison, no other life could tempt her to reach for the golden ring Lanny insisted was waiting for her. And she couldn’t very well face him again; not because she might be tempted to change her mind, but because she’d just proven to him that he’d never been the coward he’d believed himself to be. How could she possibly look him in the eye when, of her own free will, she was choosing the cowardly way out?

Coming home from the hospital she’d been happy to see the weight of so many guilty years lift from his shoulders as he forgave the thirteen-year-old he’d once been. He would also forgive his mother because he’d promised his granddad, and Jamison Shaw kept promises. He and Lori could help each other now.

Kenneth would be gone soon and young Jamison would need a real shoulder to cry on, not hers.

“Are you ready, Skye?” Jonathan poked his dark messy head around her bedroom door then walked in and closed it behind him. “It’s nearly three, but I wanted to speak to you just a moment.”

Skye smiled. She’d miss Jonathan, miss his quick readings of her thoughts. They could work side by side for hours and never need to speak. He was a comfortable soul to have about, unless you were trying to hide something. But she was done with all that.

Or was she? The look on her friend’s face told her otherwise.

“What is it, Skye? What happened that makes you hurry to leave here?” Jonathan took her shoulders in hand and made her face him.

“It’s been a difficult assignment, that’s all.”

“Wasn’t difficult until the boy moved in.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to me about it.”

“It’s over, isn’t it? You can’t interfere with the past, correct?” He let her go.

“Correct. To answer your question, I don’t know what happened. I suppose I fell in love with him. And I suppose you already knew it.”

“I did. Surprising, isn’t it? That you were able to do so?”

“Yes. Surprising.”

“And it pains you now to leave him.”

“Yes. But loving someone makes it easy to do what is best for them.” She folded her white scarf and laid it aside.

“You hope so. You are not so sure.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“What other alternative is there?”

Her smile faltered for only a second.

“Have you ever heard of a Somerled called Lanny?”

“I have. She is not far. We deal with a man named Buchanan from her ranch. One day I’d like to see it. He told us it is magnificent.”

“It is.”

Jonathan looked genuinely surprised.

“And yet you returned. I’ve been warned that many do not, though I’ve not been told why.”

“She is a Primary. She knows things I’d never been told.”

“A Primary. Interesting.”

“You should go there, Jonathan. When your duty is finished, of course. Go. Before you have your farewell. Everyone should. Her Place of Perfection is a sight to see.”

She hugged him before he could ask her any more, then she left her room for the final time.

One foot in front of the other. Heel, toe. Heel, toe.

She stepped out onto the back porch and looked up toward Kenneth’s windbreak. Jamison was in the tree house. Asleep. It was a lovely gift to have him so close, and just as nice to have him unaware.

Heel, toe. Heel, toe.

The air caressed her face and played with her hair, catching it on the cornstalks, tugging, teasing, reminded her of the sensations she’d recently wished for.

Moments away. Only moments now. Home.

Surely there would be someone there who would comfort her before she was expected to go on. Surely she would be allowed to rest, to remember, to understand.

Only steps away from Home.

The circle was none so wide as it had been for Marcus. The community was large of course, but Somerleds had come from great distances for their former leader. Seven or eight years at one leadership post was standard and in that time he’d worked among many.

The circle was only half so big, but it was full of smiling souls who had been her friends—none so close as Jonathan and Lucas, who had lived with her in the big house more than three years—but they squeezed her hands and wished her Godspeed.

Jonathan was last. He hugged her and lifted her easily into the air where he swung her in circle after circle.

She laughed. Of course he would miss her and watch for her—if he still remembered—hoping their paths would cross again, but he needn’t say so. It was all in his laughing eyes, lit by unworldly lights.

He put her down and opened his arms wide toward the center.

Step. Step. Step.

“Be happy, Jamison,” she whispered. Facing the tree house, instead of Jonathan, she took her place and held out her arms.

She winced when the voices started.

***

Jamison’s happy dream was invaded by the sound of Skye’s laughter. That first day, in the school parking lot, that button he’d wished for, to make her laugh again—someone was pushing it! He sat up, suddenly alert, and wondered at the time he’d wasted harassing her instead of making her laugh.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again. With every bit of time he had left with her, he’d make her laugh; hopefully those moments would make the less pleasant ones fade. They’d go to the hospital and make Granddad laugh as much as he could stand.

With every bit of time left.

When Granddad dies, she’ll be leaving!

No matter how hard he tried to look at both tragedies as separate, they smeared together into one giant ball of dread. And after being crammed into his strongbox, over and over again, those thoughts had wiggled out of their cramped quarters and now danced in his head like mimes, warning him to wake up and pay attention.

He was awake, fully awake, and his attention was drawn to the smelly wood covering the window. It couldn’t be morning, but there were lights winking between the slats. And someone was singing, badly!

They were having one of their Exploding-Man Ceremonies he’d talked about on the recording, about the night that had been wiped from his memory! And if they were sending someone off—

“Skye!”

He stood and banged against the wood. He’d done too good a job nailing it down. No use.

What had he said on the tape? It was all over, right after the singing?!

Too dark to see anything inside, he lunged for the drop door and fumbled with the latch. Thank goodness he hadn’t felt the need to use the bolt.

No time!

He dropped onto the fork in the trunk and nearly lost his balance, but caught himself.

There, in the field, a crop circle like he’d expected. A figure stood in the center, but with his eyes still blurred with sleep, he couldn’t tell who it was.

The singing improved. What did that mean?

The figure in the center began to move. No, it was rising. In the air!

“Noooo!” His voice broke. “Noooo!” he screamed again. “Stop! I’m coming down!” He didn’t dare wait to see if they’d heard him. He had to get to the field, had to get the hell out of that tree.

He had to be in time. He had to!

Please, God, don’t let them blow her up! Don’t take her! Please!

He remembered what she’d thought the other night when he’d brought out the ropes. She thought they were going to swing over the fence.

He’d use the rope and pulley to get up in the tree hours ago, with the weighted pallet as a counter-balance. Now, with the pallet on the ground and the end of the rope in his hand, he jumped back off the branch. The pallet’s weight jarred the rope, but it lifted off the ground.

Jamison swung like Bloody-freaking-Tarzan over the fence, and as if it were a tire swing over a familiar swimming hole, he let go of the rope at just the right moment and went sailing out over the corn. Too bad his legs didn’t stay under him.

He landed on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs. His spine might have been broken but he didn’t stop to check. He just rolled to his side and kept moving while he waited for his lungs to inflate.

Where were the lights?

He looked back to the tree house to guess the direction and veered to the right. Air came back with a vengeance and he felt like he was swallowing a giant, painful bubble of it. Still, there was no time to recover.

“Skye!” Shouting helped a bit. In. Out. In, again. “Skye! Please, God, help me!” In, again. Stop and breathe. No! Don’t stop!

“Young Jamison, you surprise me. Again.” Lucas stood next to him in a gap between rows, his displeasure visible from the light emanating from the ground beneath him. “Seems you and I have stood in this field together once before. Do you remember?”

Was that a threat in his voice, or just curiosity?

He didn’t care.

“What have you done with Skye?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“You continually accuse us of losing people. It’s getting tiresome.” Lucas grabbed Jamison’s arm and hauled him to the left.

“Where is she?” Jamison softened his voice and clung to the big man’s white sleeve. “Please, Lucas. Help me. She can’t be gone. She can’t!”

“I’m not allowed to interfere.”

“Just point me in the right direction.”

Lucas tilted his head back and Jamison’s heart stopped mid-beat. No! Not up!

Then Lucas’s arm shot out, his finger pointing in the direction they’d been moving.

Not wasting time with thank-you’s, Jamison ran.

A woman in a white robe was hurrying away between rows. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her.

Not Skye.

The woman patted his hand. He released her and walked away.

“Jamie?”

Tingles popped and melted down his skin at the sound of her voice. He’d been so afraid he’d never hear it again.

Turning, he found her still-tangible form within reach, so he grabbed her and spun her in a circle, making a half-hearted crop circle of their own.

“You called me Jamie.”

“Yes.”

“You know what that means, right?”

“I know, but do you?”

“Yeah. It means you love me. Only people who love me call me Jamie—and get away with it.” He was grinning like an idiot.

“And you let me get away with it.”

“Yeah. You know what that means?”

“Yeah, but I’d like to hear it, I think.”

“I love you, Skye.”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“I don’t know. I guess it would be easier if I didn’t.” He stepped back, but didn’t let go of her arms.

“It would be easier.”

“But it’s not a possibility. When I heard them singing—”

“I know. I was facing the trees. I heard you holler. Then you came flying out of the darkness.” She started laughing. “They stopped singing, you scared them so.”

“Good.” He tried to convince himself she wasn’t laughing at him, but at her friends. “Did you fall or did you float to the ground?”

“Oh, no, I fell. Good thing I don’t break.”

He sobered.

“Is there anything we can do about that? Make you... breakable?”

***

It wasn’t easy getting Jamison to go home and go to bed. Skye vowed, promised and crossed her heart that she would be there in the morning. After that, he made Lucas promise the same before he finally walked away—backwards—waving, smiling, and tripping his way along the fence.

“And what will you tell him in the morning?” Lucas held open the front door for her.

“The truth. That there is no hope of happily-ever-after with one of the Final Host.” She entered and headed for the hallway.

“I’ve been instructed not to interfere, and yet I should remind you that your ultimate happiness was guaranteed in The Agreement. Why some change their minds, I cannot understand.”

She turned to face him. He was frowning at the floor.

“You know?”

Lucas lifted his frown and settled it on her.

“I know many things that you may not, cousin. What do you know?”

“I’ve been to see Lanny.”

Lucas raised his hand and backed away from her. “Say no more. I should never have said anything. I will not interfere.”

“You know the things she told me?”

“I cannot interfere.”

“But you know them?”

“I have heard things. I will not discuss them. I will live by The Agreement. I will not discuss it.”

And when those broad shoulders turned from her and headed into the kitchen to avoid what Lanny may or may not have said, the walls of innocence dropped away and she knew Jamison had been right from the beginning.

The Final Host, cowards all.

***

Jamison woke to his head purring loudly. It was his phone, vibrating through his cheek and into his teeth. He’d fallen asleep on the couch, needing to stay close to the door, in case of singing, he supposed. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Skye not to keep her word, but she’d almost abandoned him before.

If she tried to get away again, he didn’t know what he would do—run into the field and grab her legs?

He shook his head, trying to get the paranoia out. If you couldn’t trust an angel, who could you trust?

He opened the message from his mom.

Daddy’s the same. Go 2 school. Keep yr phone close.

School? She had to be joking.

Whether Skye could smell him or not, he showered. He went to the laundry room to wash the white clothing from the ranch, but realized he hadn’t needed to. They were spotless. Even the pits smelled like fresh air.

Hustling back to his room, he folded them up and put them in the bottom drawer of his bureau. He should think about returning them—it was probably against some policy to let a non-Somerled keep them, but he didn’t want to let them go just yet.

He flipped open his phone to tell Skye she had to come to school with him, but realized she didn’t have a number. Maybe he’d have to get her one. They could have day-long conversations—who was he kidding? He wanted to keep tabs on her, the same reason all parents got phones for their kids.

He’d get her a pink phone with a white case. People would assume she was sticking to Somerled tradition, but they’d both know what was underneath.

His t-shirt stuck to his still-wet back and he was out the door, headed toward Skye’s house before the chill hit him. Only it wasn’t just from not toweling off well. He’d been thinking warm and fuzzy, even pink, thoughts all morning and had ignored what he’d be facing as soon as he got on Somerled soil; Lucas knew he remembered. Jamison had interrupted a farewell ceremony—again. Their secret was out. Would Skye’s opinion matter when that secret was threatened?

He’d just have to state his case.

He was imagining what he’d say when he cleared the front of the fence and caught a glimpse of the back of the house and froze. Skye’s car was missing.

“Oh no you don’t.” Jamison took off for the front door, determined to bust it down if he had to.

Beep. Beep.

Skye pulled up, blocking the drive. He thanked God. Really.

“Get in.” She raised her eyebrow. “School or the hospital?”

“School.” He shoved his car keys into his pocket and climbed in.

She spun the car around and headed back past his house and toward town.

“You didn’t sleep.”

“I did. I checked my phone every hour or so. I slept between.”

“You need food.”

“You sound like my mother.”

Her smile said she didn’t mind.

They arrived at school just as the bell rang. Since they had first hour together, he was able to shove the rest of his fast food breakfast down his throat and put off the lecture he’d prepared for making her come to all of his classes.

A new teacher stood by the door, a young geek, probably just out of junior college. He clutched a clipboard to his chest, glaring over at Mr. Evans as if he wasn’t about to share his brilliant teaching techniques while another teacher might listen.

“Mr. Evans!” Jamison walked over to the desk the older man was casually emptying.

“Mr. Shaw.” The older man stood and shook Jamison’s hand. His grin was infectious. There was more color to his skin, more light in his eyes.

“You look like you’ve lost ten years, sir.”

Evans laughed. “At least ten. Thank you.” He sat again and started picking things out of the drawer.

The new sub cleared his throat.

“Give it a rest, Junior,” Evans growled to his replacement. “You can’t begin until after announcements anyway.” He looked over at Jamison and winked, then noticed his and Skye’s hands wrapped together like tree roots. “You should come see me sometime, Shaw. You, too, Miss Somerled.”

The sub cleared his throat and started toward the desk, but Evans whipped his head around and froze the kid mid-stride.

“I am a civilian now, puppy. I can speak to whomever I want. Now go stand in your corner and try not to piss on the rug.”

The sub turned red and stomped out of the class, the laughter of the students drowning out the slam of the door. The guy was either going to go cry or run to the office. Jamison’s money was on both.

Announcements droned on while the class strained to hear, in the background, their new English teacher stir up the office with his complaints about Evans. To everyone’s disappointment, the background noise was moved away from the microphone. They settled for watching their former teacher, now renegade, toss whole books and sheaves of papers into the trash can without so much as glancing through them. He would pick up things too small for most to recognize, smile, and plant them in his coffee cup like precious jewels. One item, Jamison was sure, was a blue butterfly paper clip the man had often fingered while reading his texts.

Evans stood, and as if on cue the final chime signaled the end of the announcements.

“To quote a great contemporary writer, named Evans, ‘Life is short, people. Grab it by the balls.’” Raising his mug of drawer junk, he toasted the class, then Jamison, then walked to the door which was opened for him by the school truancy officer. “Piss off,” he told the uniform, and walked away in the wake of hoots and applause. He couldn’t have timed it any better.

“He’s right, Jamison.” Skye squeezed his hand and looked at his pocket where his phone had begun to vibrate. “Life is short. I’m so sorry.”

Somehow knowing he couldn’t stand to let go of her, Skye grabbed the back of his hoodie and held on while he answered.

“Mom?”

“Jamison. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sent you to school. You need to come to the hospital.”

“Is he...gone?”

“No, but he won’t last much longer. Can you come?”

“We’ll be there in a minute.” He was already moving toward the door. His phone was back in his pocket and his hand wrapped around Skye’s again when the arrival of a delegation of excited office staff kept them from escaping. It took them a minute to realize they’d missed Mr. Evans.

Mr. Forbes, the principal, was the only body between Jamison and the door.

“Excuse me, sir.” Jamison nodded to the door.

“Not now, son.”

“Look, we’ve got to get to the hospital. My granddad—”

“I said not now. Take your seats.” The man leaned on the door handle and looked over Jamison’s tall head, his eyes wide.

Rachel Phillips was standing on her desk, reading a letter.

“To be read in the case of my dismissal. Since Mr. Forbes didn’t have my back on this one, I think it only fair to share with you, his students, that the young ladies of this school should avoid being alone with their beloved principal at all cos—”

Rachel was physically pulled off the desk by the truant officer. Not smart. Rachel’s dad was a suer.

The Principal flew across the room to take the paper from Rachel’s restrained arms, but Deidre Poulson, the secretary the students called Smiley only because she supposedly couldn’t, snatched the letter from his fingers before he could get a good hold.

Then she smiled.

Jamison realized the door was finally unmanned and seconds later he and Skye were running through the parking lot trying to focus on why they were leaving. It wasn’t easy, with KJFB’s news vehicles screaming into the lot and parking wherever they pleased. The biggest van, with the mini satellite dish on top parked behind Skye’s car, blocking it in.

A man climbed out of the passenger side and slid open the cargo door.

Jamison ran forward and stood in the guy’s way. “Look, dude. This is our car. We’ve got to get to the hospital. You’ve gotta move your van.”

“Sorry, kid. You’ll have to just walk to lunch.” The driver joined in, hauling out a camera.

“I said, we’ve got to get to the hospital.”

The camera man smiled. “What? Is she in labor or something? Those don’t get pregnant, dude, no matter what she might have told you.” His nose lifted on one side.

Jamison’s fist put it back where it was supposed to be.

The passenger was more interested in the camera not hitting the ground.

“Damn you, kid. You’ll go to Juvie for that.”

“And where will you go, sir, for kidnapping two minors?” Skye looked from the passenger to the cameraman, standing on his feet once again, and back to the passenger. “Forcing us to stay is considered kidnapping in torte law, is it not? Like when someone tries to tow away a car while someone is inside. Is the camera on?”

The passenger growled. “Move the van, Jake.”

Skye handed Jamison the keys. When they were blocked by yet another van pulling in, he chose to skip the negotiating and just laid on the horn. After ten long seconds of earsplitting noise, the van driver flipped them off and backed out of their way.

“I don’t suppose you can suggest that they leave Mr. Evans alone?”

“I could try, but it can’t be against their will, and they’re pretty set on getting to him.”

The hospital wasn’t far. In fact, when he looked down the hill from the parking terrace he realized they could have hiked up to it in about fifteen minutes. But fifteen minutes could have made a difference.

They ran through the doors and to the elevators.

“Just a minute, you two.” A mean-looking woman came around the corner of the hospitality desk. The elevator door opened and she hurried toward them.

Jamison jumped inside with Skye. As the doors closed beyond the woman’s reach they shouted Mr. Evans’ parting remark in unison. “Piss off!”

It was a disrespectful, irreverent, and liberating thing to do on the way to see Granddad for possibly the last time.

“Kenneth would have loved that,” Skye said, finishing his own thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

An hour after they arrived at the hospital, Kenneth’s breathing became sporadic and only Skye heard the singing and witnessed his spirit lift from his body like a fire jumping from its own ashes. Jamison and his mother stood at each side of the bed, holding his clay hands, hopelessly waiting for one last word, one last smile.

“It was horrible, Skye,” Kenneth said, his spirit coming to stand next to her, “what they do to a body to keep it alive.” He shuddered, as if physically trying to shake off the memories.

Skye nodded discreetly.

“But I’d nae change it for all the world.”

Skye looked at him then. “You wouldn’t?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Joy’s an addicting thing, aye? I would have suffered anything, ye ken, to have these two back, to have me daughter’s love once more, to see the lad as the man he will be.” He looked at Skye, a frown marring his brilliant brow. “One good swig of joy is worth a hundred sorrows.”

She smiled. He loved pitting one against a hundred, whether in a story of battle, or a kiss of his sweet wife’s lips.

“You’ll tell me two things or I’ll nae go.”

“All right, old man. What two things?” She lowered her head and spoke out of the side of her mouth.

“I want to know they fare well without me.”

“I can’t see the future, but you know they will.”

“Aye, I suppose I do. They were raised by a Scotsman, after all.”

“Aye, that they were.” Skye peeked sideways and smiled when her brogue seemed to please him. “And the other thing?”

“Tell me true. They speak Gaelic in Heaven?”

“Go on and see, auld mon. You’ll nae be disappointed.”

“You answered all me prayers, Skye Somerled. I’ll nae forget it.” His bright image began to recede. “I’ll pray the same for ye, lassie, that ye’ll also get all you pray for.”

He looked lovingly at his family while being drawn up. When the image was gone, and the sound of singing hosts stopped echoing in her mind. Back on the bed, the old man’s body lay still, his arms at his sides. Mrs. Shaw felt her way into the bathroom and closed the door on a sob.

Jamison was crying, silently shaking while water poured down a face twisted in desolation. If Skye were capable of it, she would have sobbed, it was so heartbreaking. Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto his sweatshirt as if his jowls were melting. His nose ran, but his hands never left his armpits, as if he were afraid of falling to pieces if he let go of himself.

She freed a handkerchief from her pocket and with her left hand wiped his cheeks, then wrapped an arm behind his back and held on while his frame shook.

There was nothing on earth so rending as a man crying. It made the foundations of the world wobble a bit when its warriors landed on their knees. And that same world sighed with relief when they struggled back to their feet.

Jamison was one such warrior. Skye knew it from the bottom of her soul, and if it was one thing she was fairly certain of, it was the condition of her soul. Her future was scary, but her soul was fine. It was all promised in The Agreement.

Jamison calmed and looked around the room. “He’s gone?”

“Yes.”

“You saw him.”

“Yes.”

“You talked to him. I heard you.”

“Yes.”

“What won’t he be disappointed in?”

She told the truth. “You, your mom. Heaven.” She grinned. “He wouldn’t leave unless I told him Gaelic is spoken there. I told him he wouldn’t be disappointed.” She could see the war going on inside him. “Jamison, he knew you loved him, and he knew how much.”

“If you would have told me he was here, listening, I would have liked to have told him again.”

“He’s heard you all morning. Besides, what would your mom have thought? It will be hard enough for her without wondering about her neighbors.”

Jamison looked at the bathroom door. His mother’s crying paused while she blew her nose, then started again.

“I should go.” She took a step away.

“Don’t leave. You can’t leave.” He reached out, but dropped his arm when she backed another step.

“This is a time for families to have privacy.”

“You are family.”

“I’m not.”

“You will be.” His eyes dared her to argue.

“Jamison. Please. Now is not the time to discuss anything. Let me go.”

Pain scrunched his face.

“I didn’t mean ‘let me go’ go. I mean let me leave for now. Let me go home so you and your mom can have time together. If I promise I’ll still be here in three days, can you give me that? Can you give me two days alone, to think? If I promise not to go anywhere? I do promise. And I can’t break promises.”

“Oh yes you can. You can do all kinds of terrible things.”

“Like what?”

“Like break my heart.” He smiled, but his smile slipped away. “I am breakable, you know.”

“I know. I’m beginning to think I am too.”

That got his attention.

“You also told that woman to piss off.” He raised his Kenneth Jamison eyebrow and grinned.

“You’re right. You see? I have a lot to sort out. Let me...go home...for now. I’ll come to the funeral. Let me know if you need help.”

She walked out the door and thankfully, he let her. Leaving him for the final time wouldn’t be nearly as easy.

***

If the grocery stores in Flat Springs were struggling to keep their shelves stocked, it was because of all the food taken to the Jamison farm for the three days before the funeral.

Jamison figured, in spite of the circumstances, his mom was a little happy that “fed” was taken care of for a good while. The fridge was packed, as were the countertops and freezer. They’d even put a cake or two in the deep freeze.

The “warm” was getting there. He’d gotten used to wearing plenty of layers. Chopping wood for the wood-burning stove was something he liked for two reasons; the pure and pungent smell of freshly split logs reminded him of Granddad, and the fire and exercise both kept him toasty warm.

Fed and warm. Check.

These days, a fissure of cold ran up his spine only when he paused to appreciate the beauty of the snow-covered Rockies in the distance. Granddad had chosen his home for the resemblance to his beloved Highlands, since his sweetheart wouldn’t move so far from her family.

There was nobody left now—just him and his mom.

And Skye.

While his mom met with Granddad’s lawyer, Jamison tracked down Mr. Evans. For some reason, he wanted to talk with the man without Skye around.

He found him dumping the burned contents of a pan in the trash can beside his large log home on the opposite end of town. It looked like it had once served as a Ranger Station with the logs covered in thick red paint that would last a hundred years more.

The smell of the burned food reached Jamison and his nose must have turned up.

“She’s learning to cook.”

“I hear she’s eighteen.”

“Nineteen.”

“Yeah, no famous nineteen-year-old chefs, are there?”

Evans laughed. “No, and I don’t think twenty will be much better.” He pointed to a seat on the wide front porch, then took the pan in the house. When he came back out, he propped the door open. “Not a day for entertaining indoors.” Evans took a seat. “I’d offer you a cold drink, but I’m afraid of what it would taste like by the time I got it outside.”

“That’s all right.” Jamison pushed a rock with his shoe, tried to get it down a plank of wood without knocking it in the crack. “I wanted to thank you, for not passing on that essay.”

“No problem. We all have stuff we’re not proud of. But if it’s any consolation, I think you did the wise thing.”

“I did the Conrad thing. I’m tired of being a Conrad.”

“Yeah, well, as you can see, I got tired of it too.” Evans cocked a thumb at the open door. Somewhere in the smoky interior a girl was banging pans around, and singing to Queen.

Maybe his wife was an old soul.

Which reminded him.

“Do you think you’ll regret it later? When the two of you are—well, when you’re old and wrinkled and she’s not, do you think she’ll regret it?”

“I’m sure she will. Absolutely sure of it. But it doesn’t make a difference. I’m happy now. We’re happy now.” Evans sat up straight and frowned. “You’re not recording this, or planning to sell this to the newspapers, are you?

Jamison laughed to set the guy at ease. “No. I’m not desperate for money.”

Evans relaxed. After a minute, he spoke again, but his voice was different, distant.

“It’s not even about being happy. It’s about love.” He looked Jamison in the eye. “I love her on a level she can’t even imagine. I love her soul and she doesn’t yet understand that she has one.” He looked away as if in pain, up at the mountains. “That’s the hard part. If she were a little older, she’d understand just how much I love her. Right now, she probably thinks I’m in it for the sex.”

Jamison tried to think of something quick to keep unwanted images from the screen in his brain. He thought of Skye, about how much he loved her and yet he didn’t think he could make her understand. And she probably felt the same about him, that he was unable to truly understand where she was coming from.

He didn’t know how long Evans had been waiting for him to say something, but the guy was looking at him funny.

“I think you know what I’m talking about, Mr. Shaw. Having a hard time convincing the Somerleds to let you see Skye?”

“More like I’m having a hard time convincing her.”

“Well, you’ve a little more than age to overcome, don’t you? All that religion and style of life crap.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you love her, you’ll do what’s best for her, even if it means sitting behind a desk and eating your heart out during your lunch hour every day.”

“And why didn’t you keep doing that?”

“Because I want what was best for her, Mr. Shaw, and that’s me. But what is best for our Skye, huh? If she were Mallinson—if you could get her to fear and fight, would she fight to have you?”

Jamison left Evans more confused than ever. When he got home, his mother thought he’d been smoking something.

“Just eggs, I think. Burned eggs.”

But it wasn’t the smell of abused protein that made him want to vomit. Grandpa was really gone. The funeral would be tomorrow. And the time Skye had asked for was like an hourglass in his head, only every grain of sand that fell sounded like a boulder crashing down a hillside. He wondered if the cracking noise was coming from the hour glass or his heart.

CHAPTER THIRTY

It never failed. Each morning Jamison got a punch in the stomach when he remembered that Granddad was gone. He vaguely remembered the same thing happening after they lost Grandma, and he couldn’t remember how long it had taken for it to stop feeling like a cruel trick.

Half the town turned out for the viewing. Many batches of white robes came through the receiving line and each time, Jamison looked for Skye among them. He was getting worried when Lucas and Jonathan’s group came through without her.

His mom’s attention was drawn away as the broad shoulders blocked Jamison’s view of the rest of the room.

Lucas held out his hand, his eyes daring Jamison to take it.

He looked the man in the eye, grabbed on and gave the big hand a firm shake.

“Shaw, as I’ve told you before, I’m not to interfere. Your memories are safe from me, sir.”

At least one heavy stone was suddenly gone from his chest.

Safe. Check.

No longer Young Jamison? He’d kind of miss that, but since Old Jamison was gone, there was no need.

He reached out and stopped Lucas from moving on. “Please, call me Jamison.”

“All right, Jamison it is. And Jamison?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t worry. She’s coming, and she’s bringing you a surprise.”

It was nearly eight o’clock and the line was still out the door of the mortuary. People had plenty they wanted to get off their chests about the rude old Scotsman they’d all run from at one time or another. On the other hand, he had personally been offered seven jobs and heard the phrase “any grandson of Ken Jamison’s...yada yada yada,” too many times to count.

He just smiled and nodded and shook hands for hours, but his eyes kept scanning the crowd for white.

Then a lone blur. Gone again. Back.

She looked at the flowers, read the cards, laughed. He could feel that laughter reach out across the elegant room, to cover his chest like a remedy for what ailed him.

Happy. Check.

All four states of being present and accounted for. It wasn’t complete, though. Underneath that current of happiness ran the fact that he couldn’t just turn around and talk to his granddad lying behind him in a dapper dress kilt.

His mom squeezed his hand when she realized what had caught his attention.

“Any friend of Kenneth Jamison’s is a friend of yours, right?” she whispered in his ear.

He laughed. His mom was great. She only asked about Skye when it was obvious he was thinking about her, but she never pried.

Finally the figure in white edged closer. Trying not to stare, so everyone in the room wouldn’t guess how badly he needed to look at her, Jamison tried to concentrate on the people talking to his mother. From the corner of his eye, however, he saw a dark figure coming right at him.

Black-clad arms flew around him and held him immobilized.

“Jamison, dude!”

Suddenly released, he fell back a step. Ray? In a suit?

“Ray?”

“Yeah, man. Ray Peters. Remembered me, huh?”

Jamison grabbed his friend again, hiding his face, absolutely unable to speak, for so many reasons. How much would Ray remember? Did he even remember that first day, the day Jamison had arrived? It was impossible now to tell which was real memory and what he’d memorized from the recording he’d made.

“Yeah, I remember you.”

He glanced over at Skye to find the “I-told-you-so” look he expected.

“I see that clubhouse every time I come past your grandpa’s place, bro. Makes me want to make paper airplanes.”

“Me too. You’ll have to come over and we’ll paper the cornfield.”

“Yeah, well, don’t look now, but one of those neighbors is listening.” Ray spoke from the side of his mouth, then laughed and put his arm around Skye.

Suddenly Jamison wasn’t so fond of the guy.

“Skye says you two are good friends now.”

“Yeah?” Jamison could feel heat radiating away from his face. “That’s all, huh? Well, I guess I’d better refresh her memory.” He took a quick step and wrapped an arm around her waist, his splayed hand pulled her to him. She’d had no time to prepare, to resist. His mouth came down on hers and he could all but hear his granddad cheering from the casket behind him.

He let her catch a breath, but didn’t release her. He looked deep into her eyes, to give her a message, not to read one.

The room had gone silent except for his mom’s “Awww.” Lucas and Jonathan were standing near the exit sign smiling, thank goodness. He really didn’t care. He was no longer the type to sit by and let misunderstandings complicate his life.

Skye wasn’t pushing him away with any real conviction so he took advantage.

“And this one’s for my granddad.” He kissed her again. Hard, short and sweet.

She held onto the back of her head like it was a hat that might fall off. Once she pushed out of his arms and got her balance she put her hands on her hips, sputtered for a minute, then ended up dropping her hands to her sides.

“You’re right. He would have liked that. And maybe even this.” She stepped up to Jamison and grabbed his tie, pulling his head down to her level. “You’re going to pay for that, Jamison Shaw,” she whispered, then kissed him back, but the kiss was damned short. He guessed that was the punishment.

“I hate to break this up, Skye, but you’re holding up the line.” Ray nudged them apart. “Burke, shake his hand and let’s get out of here.”

Burke, whom Jamison barely remembered from a couple of elementary school classes, held out his hand awkwardly. “Sorry about your grandpa, man. He was cool.”

Jamison couldn’t help it. He grabbed Burke and hugged him, so glad the guy had never been blown to smithereens as feared. He set him down quickly and knocked him on the shoulder.

“Thanks man. Glad to see you’re...you—glad to see you.”

Burke looked confused, but smiled and gave a little wave as he walked away with Ray.

Jamison grabbed Skye and pushed her behind his back. “Stay.”

She gave a small giggle and it raced up his spine and pinged him on the back of his head like a hammer game at the fair.

The rest of the line moved quickly with folks peeking at Skye, mumbling their condolences and hurrying on. Every now and then his mom would say something to Skye and the two would laugh. Besides appreciating that combination of music, Jamison was glad Skye was in a good mood. It would give him a little bit of a head start for the conversation he had planned...

...a conversation she wasn’t going to like.

***

“I’m going to bed.” Mom picked up her glass and took it to the kitchen, then waved to him and Skye as she climbed the stairs. “Don’t stay up too late.”

He started to say ‘we won’t’ but choked on the lie. They’d get everything settled and in spite of the cold hardness in his stomach, he wouldn’t put it off any longer. Skye’d promised to stay for the funeral. If he let her go before the future was set, he’d never see her again. He knew it.

They sat at opposite ends of the couch, facing each other. She’s ready for this conversation too. Good.

Jamison cleared his throat. “I’ll get this out of the way first. I love you. I don’t think you can understand how much, and I think you believe I could get over you, like some ordinary broken heart, if you left me now.”

She pursed her lips, then nodded.

He went on. “You’d be wrong. I’d say I can’t live without you, but that’s not true.”

She looked surprised, almost hurt.

“I’d go on living, just like everyone else does, but I’d be dead inside. I’d get obsessed with Somerled compounds. I’d beat their doors down, looking for you. And some of them aren’t so friendly—like Lanny’s group—and I could get hurt or my memory erased. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

She smiled, then shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand to stop her.

“I’m not done.” He pulled Granddad’s plaid over his legs, offered her the other end, but she shook her head. “I don’t want to live without you, but I will.” He leaned forward. “But only if it’s the best thing for you.”

She looked at her hands and he couldn’t tell what she might be thinking.

“You can list all the reasons in the world for us not to be together, but unless I agree, unless it’s more important to you than I am, then I’m not going to let you leave me.”

She didn’t look up. He waited a minute, then told her he was finished.

“I’ll get this out of the way first. I love you too.” She didn’t look too happy about it. “It’s been fun, playing the part of girlfriend.”

Aaagh. He was going to die. She was giving him the “it’s been fun” line and he was sitting there, bleeding. But what did she know of blood? She really couldn’t know how he felt.

“I’ve liked, um, kissing you, but you know I can’t feel it the way other girls can.”

The dim light of the lamps gave the walls a warm glow, but to Jamison, it all looked pointless and sick. Her feeble attempts to make him feel better weren’t helping.

“Please. Stop.” He cleared his throat. “All this flattery is killing me.” He pulled the blanket off and put his feet on the ground to show her to the door.

“Excuse me. I’m not finished.” She folded her arms and glared at him until he faced her again. “Let me remind you of what you just told me. I don’t think you really understand how much I love you. If you did understand, there is no way you could let me out that door. Ever.”

Well, that sounded a lot better. In fact, he needed to get closer so he could hear more.

He scooted to the center of the couch, but she held out her hands.

“Wait. I’m not done.”

“We need to talk softer, so my mom won’t hear.” He pushed her feet onto the floor then pulled her across his lap, facing him.

“It bothers me, how smooth you move. Makes me wonder how many girlfriends you’ve had.”

“Just you. I’m just naturally smooth.”

He could feel her, probing his memories but there were no old girlfriends to find. A few random kisses, but he couldn’t remember faces or names. She probably thought he was pathetic.

She beamed.

“Great, now I’m a pity case.”

“Pity for the rest of them.” She leaned forward and kissed him with all the emotion he would have expected from a mortal girlfriend. When she pulled back, though, she was upset. “I would have loved to have felt that.”

He was such an idiot! Here she was, deaf, dumb and blind to everything he could enjoy and he was trying to keep her here, keep her in the prison of no sensation.

His shoulders slumped. “What do we do, sweeting?”

She smiled at him through eyes that could not weep. “Kenneth called me sweeting.”

“Should I call you something else?”

“No. I like it. Makes you sound Scottish.”

“Aye, that it does, sweeting.”

She pulled at his hair, smoothed it off his brow, messed it up again. He could have sat like that all night, but that would only leave him alone in the morning.

“I’m serious, Skye. What do we do? Either I go with you, or we find a way to make you...breakable.”

She laughed.

“Why is it you can laugh, but not cry?”

“Camouflage. A person who can’t laugh draws more attention. Mortals are taught not to cry in public; it’s not necessary, not in my repertoire.” She struggled, tried to get up, but he held her tight. “You see? I’m like a robot. And you want to spend the rest of your life with me.” She rolled her eyes.

He grabbed her chin with one hand and made her look at him.

“There you are. See? There, inside the robot. Take away the robot and I’d still want you with me. Forever.”

“Take away the robot? You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t just a set of clothes. It’s what ties me to the ground. This container is my gravity. No container and I go up. Up.”

His grip tightened on his precious helium balloon. The idea that she could be taken from him so easily, like a string slipping through his fingers, made him freaking insane.

“Listen. Skye. Listen.”

She responded to his desperation and touched his face, trying to smooth the fear that would not smooth away. “What is it? What did I say?”

“Skye. Please. You don’t understand. You can’t leave me. You can’t. I lied. I won’t be able to go on without you. I won’t. It’s not a choice. I have no choice.”

He pulled her face until their foreheads met. He wanted to jump into those eyes, go where she was. He needed to be closer to make her understand.

“I know it, deep down. I know I’m not capable of living through it.”

She sat up then. “Jamie, you don’t know what you’re saying. You must live through it. You are the one who doesn’t understand.”

She hugged his hand to her heart and closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. She was about to stab him in the heart. He knew it. He tried to brace himself, numb himself for bad news. How else would he survive it?

“Jamie, please, listen to me very carefully. I do have choices. Two choices, but only two. Staying is not one of them.” He tried to pull his hand back, but she held on. “I can put it off a couple more days at most, but by Friday, it’s over. I know what you’re thinking, but where I go you can’t follow.”

“What if I were dead?” The words just jumped out. He hadn’t thought them. Or had he?

“Jamison! Dead or alive, you cannot come.”

He pushed her aside and ran to the bathroom where he puked his brains out. If his mother heard, he didn’t know it. In fact, she could have been standing outside the bathroom, chatting with Skye and he wouldn’t have heard a thing. The bowl was his world. The simplicity of it made him smile as the next wave came up.

A little while later, puffy-faced and feeling green, he laid his head on a pillow made of Granddad’s plaid and shut his swollen, burning eyes. He heard Skye moving around the room. She covered him with a soft and heavy quilt, messed with the wood-burning stove and sat in the old man’s rocking chair. The rhythmic squeaks lulled him toward sleep but he wouldn’t say goodnight.

He was exhausted, too tired think, let alone ask if she would be there in the morning.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Jamison woke to the sounds of someone stirring in the kitchen. For a split second, he wondered which grandparent was putting on the coffee. So many times when he’d awakened on that couch with the busy fabric and firm cushions, he’d been roused by the odd plop and hiss of the old percolator. He’d find Granddad reading the paper and Grandma digging eggs and things out of the fridge.

And brown eggs. He remembered brown eggs.

No one was cooking that morning, however. There was a lot of sack rustling and bottle shuffling, but nothing sizzled or hissed. Nothing smelled but the cold ashes in the stove.

His belly felt full of them.

His mom’s head had appeared around the corner, but then disappeared again. “Oh, good, I didn’t have to wake you.”

“Oh, you woke me all right.” He felt around his face expecting the whole thing to be swollen. There wasn’t so much as a crust in the corner of his eye.

Wait a minute.

He’d woken up like that before, not many days before, and had a cheerful breakfast with a mother who was never freaking cheerful in the morning.

God, please don’t let my memories be gone!

“Mom?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“Where’s Skye?”

The wait time between the question and the answer was going to kill him.

“Mom!”

She came around the corner, a power bar in her mouth. “Mwah?”

“Where’s Skye?”

Mom held up a finger and chewed. He was going to kill her. She walked over and sat on the edge of the couch, facing him. Serious talk time. Not good. Not good.

“If you don’t spit it out I’m going to scream.”

Her eyes rolled. “She’s going to be here in about twenty minutes. She told me about the fight you two had last night.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. It’s not like I couldn’t hear you arguing, you know.”

He sat up straight and grabbed her arm.

“Relax. I didn’t listen. I was exhausted and at the back of the house. Besides, if you were arguing, you wouldn’t be, uh, doing, uh, other things.” She beamed, proud of her reasoning.

“Unless we then made up.”

Mom frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“What did she tell you?”

“That you’re having trouble with her family accepting you, of course. Although Lucas and Jonathan seemed to be all right about you two kissing at Daddy’s viewing.” She put her hand against his cheek. “I’m so sorry, honey. She said you two are going to talk to the rest of her family, today, huh?”

“Yeah.” He had no idea what Skye was up to.

“And you’ve agreed to live by what they decide?”

“I have?”

“She said you have. Uh oh. She thinks you’ve agreed. Maybe that fight isn’t over after all.”

“No. I mean yeah, but, I’m not completely awake yet, you know?”

“Jamie, honey. She says that if her family can’t accept you, that you’ll be coming back without her. I’m so sorry.”

The torment he’d been feeling the night before came back full force.

Where I go, you can’t follow.

Oh, it was going to be a long day with all the bawling he had planned. He’d better steal a box of tissue from storage. And maybe a towel.

“I’m fixing enough food for a couple of days, just in case they make you sleep in a barn and won’t feed you.” Mom gave him a hug and headed back to the kitchen.

“A barn?” If they were going off to spend her last days together, where had his mom gotten the impression there would be a barn?

“Yeah, weren’t there barns at that ranch?”

Lanny’s! Hell. If he only had two days left with Skye, at the most, that’s the last place he wanted to go, where they’d be separated and he’d be put to work. His back had just barely recovered.

“Oh, and I forgot to tell you.” Mom came back with a warped pop-tart held with a dirty oven mitt. Yum. “She said you should wear the white clothes they gave you.”

***

Skye wished Lori could come along for the ride, just so Jamison would have to keep his foul mood to himself. If he got too upset, he wouldn’t be able to drive, and there was no way she could. She may not have the adrenaline running through her body to make it shake, but her own mind was in the middle of a freak storm and she could barely walk a straight line, let alone drive in one.

For a farewell treat, though, she should let the sheriff pull her over once more.

That morning, for the second time, she’d said her farewells to the others. She didn’t tell them all where she was going, but Lucas and Jonathan knew. The rest understood only that she wasn’t coming back.

“Where are your bags, honey?” Lori peaked in the back of the car as her son was lifting a large blue cooler into the trunk.

“We live pretty simply. I have clothes at the other place too.”

“Oh. Okay. You drive carefully, Jamison.” His mom kissed him on the cheek and gave him a big squeeze. “You’ve promised to come back, either way. Don’t make me come after you. And call me if you need me,” she whispered into his ear.

As they were pulling away, Skye was kind of glad it was almost over; soon she wouldn’t be wishing for sensations or worrying about the consequences of getting them. She’d never be a Gabriella. It was only phantom emotion currently breaking her non-existent heart.

“Okay. Let’s have it.” Jamison barely glanced her direction before gluing his eyes on the road.

“I’m a coward, okay? I’m taking you to Lanny, so she can explain everything to you.”

“So she can tell me why you can’t stay.”

“So she can tell you what my choices are.”

“And neither one is to stay.”

“Please don’t be angry. It won’t change anything.”

He veered off the road and stopped the car. They hadn’t yet gone far. The tree arch was still visible in the side mirror.

“I’m angry, because you told me we have a couple of days together, tops, and you want to spend it at the It’s-not-okay Corral! I want to go somewhere where I can hold you. For two days straight, until someone comes and pries my fingers away, I want to hold you.”

Oh, neither one of them was going to be able to drive!

“Okay. I’ll make you a deal. You come to Lanny’s and we’ll leave there before dark, find a hotel, and you can hold me until I...until it’s over.”

“And if she doesn’t let us leave?”

“She will.”

“She didn’t before.”

“I know. She had a message she had to deliver before she could let me go.”

“What message? You didn’t tell me about a message. From who?”

“The Father.”

Jamison looked sick. “You got a message...from God?”

She laughed. “If it helps any, it was an old message.”

He tried to smile, but failed. He was shaking in his boots. “Can you tell me what the message was? No, wait. I don’t think I should even ask. I mean, it wasn’t meant for me, right?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Jamison relaxed in his seat. “That’s fine.”

“Lanny is.”

***

Skye had to drive the whole way to the ranch.

This time there were no suggestions in the air about turning around and going back. When they bought gas, the attendant paid no attention to two Somerleds travelling together. As the miles flew behind them and the canyon appeared, Jamison got paler, as if he thought he was headed for an appointment with God himself.

“The Father won’t be there, you know.”

His head jerked her way, as if he’d forgotten she was in the car with him for the last two hours, even though he’d held her hand in a death grip the entire time. He looked down at his hand and tried to open it. No go. He started pealing his fingers away from her, wincing as his blood began to flow again.

“Sorry.”

“I’m sorry for you. You’re the only one feeling it.”

He winced again, but not in pain.

“I’m sorry, Jamie. I don’t say it to make you feel bad.”

He gave her a little smile, then looked out his window.

Poor guy. He really was afraid of what he was going to hear. She’d already heard it, of course, and knew just how hopeless it was. He’d have to hear it from someone besides her or he’d never believe her. Understanding would help him get over it. It was the whole point in coming.

Jamison was intelligent. He’d see reason. Surely.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“What in Heaven’s name could you be thinking?!”

Jamison rather thought God Himself might be a kinder, gentler type than Lanny. He was beginning to consider using one of his three wishes, so to speak, to get The Guy Upstairs to save them from her temper. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d read their intent from the freeway and had been working herself into a lather while she waited for them to drive up the long canyon.

They didn’t even get a chance to get out of the car before Lanny was leaning in Skye’s window hissing at her.

“The Somerleds here? My own people? None of them have been told, and you want me to tell him? A mortal child?” Lanny pointed past Skye’s nose at the abomination sitting next to her, which was him. He lifted both arms and flipped down the sun-visor mirror. Still there. Still human-looking. Okay, so she wasn’t Medusa.

“Medusa?!”

Oh, way bad. My bad. I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

He didn’t know if he was apologizing out loud or just really clearly in his head. Either way she’d read it loud and clear and hadn’t been impressed.

He thought about pulling on the steering wheel and snaking his foot over to punch the gas pedal. Half a donut and they’d be headed back onto the road.

“You make one mark on my grass, sonny, and you’ll be planted under it.”

Blank paper. Blank paper. Nothing. Blank paper.

Surely those thoughts wouldn’t get him in trouble.

Lanny snorted.

Good snort, bad snort? Didn’t matter. Blank paper. Blank paper.

Skye shut off the engine, sealing their doom.

Jamison opened one eye; he had no idea when he’d shut them.

Skye was smiling at Lanny. Lanny was freaking smiling back, but when she caught Jamison watching, her nostrils flared and he shut that eye again.

“Come on. She’s teasing you.” Skye’s car door opened and closed. “Coward.”

“No way. No freaking way. I am not falling for that.”

He heard a mature woman’s laugh from the front porch and peeked through slit lids to see Lanny put her arm around Skye’s shoulders and usher her into the house.

“Teasing? Are you kidding me?”

Nope. Not kidding. Yes. Yes teasing. Come. In the house. Even Medusa couldn’t text in someone’s head, could she?

Un. Freaking. Believeable.

Skye stood in a hallway, fidgeting. She waved him to her.

“Do you, um, need anything?”

“I’m good.”

“No, I mean, do you need, um, to use the restroom?”

“If you mean she might make me piss my pants, it’s too late.”

Skye looked at his crotch in horror.

“He’s teasing you, Skye.”

Skye slapped him on the shoulder lightly and he grabbed her hand. He had no intention of letting go, he didn’t care how many cows were stuck in a ditch giving birth.

“Take him in, honey. I’ll just be a minute.” Lanny disappeared behind a door.

Skye walked him to the end of the hall and stopped. “Take off your shoes.” She removed hers and pushed them all against the wall, then pushed on the panel in front of them. It turned out to be a door with no handles and she led him into...Heaven.

Once they were inside, Skye pushed the door closed and turned to him, her face expectant, but nervous; her eyebrows had disappeared under her hair.

“Cool, huh?”

He needed to agree so those eyebrows could come back down.

“Yeah. Very nice.”

“Not me, silly. The room.”

He turned around and kept stepping. The carpet was so soft he felt like he should have to pay someone for the privilege of stepping on it.

He walked over to a mirror and checked his hair. Nothing hanging out of his nose; good. When he glanced over his head, he could see a dozen Jamisons, front to back to front, reflected in the mirrors behind him. The glass was tilted slightly toward the floor so the reflections went on into—

“Eternity.” Lanny sounded amused.

Okay that was cool. But he was nervous again, having Lanny in the room with them. Which personality would harass him this time?

For once, she didn’t answer his thought.

“Look at the light.” Skye bent her head back.

Jamison followed her gaze. A million tiny explosions went off in his head and he looked away, wondering if his eyes were bleeding. He even dabbed at them with the back of his sleeve.

“What’s wrong?” Skye squeezed his arm.

“Mortal eyes, honey. He can’t handle that kind of beauty.”

He looked at the older woman and noticed she’d changed into an odd dress. Like a thick bathrobe over a long tunic. Both white, almost painfully white—or maybe his eyes were just sore.

“Anything else in this room we mortals should stay away from?”

Lanny smiled. “Actually, you’re the first mortal to be allowed into this room, so you’re kind of like a guinea pig, aren’t you? You let us know if something terrible happens.” She shook her head and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. This is no place for teasing, Kenneth Jamison Shaw. Will you forgive me?”

Oh, the temptation not to. But she was right. There was something about the room that made him see rudeness, not as something funny, but as something unworthy of him. Whether it was the clothes or the room, he finally felt worthy of Skye and he took a second to memorize the moment. In his mind he pushed the old box away and opened a new one, a bright shiny new one in which he would keep only his good memories of Skye.

“Well done, boy.”

Jamison was mortified Lanny had witnessed such a private thing.

“You’re right, of course. Forgive me. I will stay out of your mind while we are in here. Will that do?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“You will not thank me for what Skye wants you to hear, though. I’m sorry.”

Jamison felt his world falling apart, as if the curtains and mirrors were sliding to the floor. None of it mattered without Skye.

He found himself seated across from Lanny, on a chair next to Skye. The object of his affection gripped his hand again, willing him to be tough. For her, he could. For a little while, he could hold it together. Once they were out of there, all bets were off.

“I’m ready, ma’am. What are Skye’s choices?”

“When you two were here last time, I felt, inspired, if you will, to let Skye in on a secret kept from the Final Host.”

“God keeps secrets from his angels?”

“He kept one, that I know of. You see, I’m a Primary, one of the few who negotiated the terms of The Agreement.”

“You mean the one about the Final Host working as angels instead of coming to Earth the old-fashioned way. Then they’d never screw up, so they’d never go to Hell, right?”

“That very Agreement.”

“And what was in the small print?”

Lanny smiled a genuine smile. “You’re a bright boy. Have you got it figured out?”

“Can I speak my mind without getting punished?”

“You can.”

“In spite of your temper?”

“Temper?!”

“Medusa.”

Lanny covered her mouth and laughed. Skye’s eyes widened. Apparently laughing wasn’t appropriate in the room either.

“Forgive my teasing, children. I assure you I have no temper.”

“And when you kicked me out of your kitchen?”

“A lesson in respect? A need for appearances?”

Jamison shook his head.

“How about, I wanted to see if you’d abandon her?”

Jamison would buy that. He gave Medusa a nod.

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I think you’re all cowards. The Final Host, I mean.”

“Oh, I know what you mean. And you’re right, of course.”

“I am?”

“You are.” Lanny got up from her stitched leather chair and Jamison flinched. She bit her lip to keep from smiling. Didn’t work. “You see, some of us saw clearly what was going on. We joined the Final Host and got them to let us represent them.”

She smiled at Skye as if in apology.

“We tricked them. We negotiated with The Father, not to save them from temptation, like they thought, but to buy them a bit of time, to build up their courage.

“Oh, The Agreement will still work for them as they expect it will. The Father is not a cheat, after all. But for some who learn courage, and maybe an appreciation for what they missed by not gaining a body, they are entitled to a second chance.”

“You put in a loophole.”

“Your mother is a lawyer?”

“Works for lawyers.”

“You might consider it for a profession.”

“Back to the loophole.”

Lanny smiled as if to say she’d just proven her point.

“Skye is now aware of the loophole.”

“So her choices are to either use it and get a body—”

“Or not.”

“Or not. Right. So, if she wants to gain a body, then she would be mortal—breakable.”

“Temptable. Able to feel pain and heartache, as you feel yourself. Able to feel joy. Able to die years before she finds that joy.”

“You lost me.”

“She’d go back, Jamison. She’d go Home and tell The Father that she chooses the right to be born. Born. Like the calf you helped deliver here. Like the calf that might have died and never known its mother.”

“Born,” Skye whispered, “like a baby. Starting from the beginning. Not 16 years old. Not knowing who you are, where to find you—”

“Not knowing that there is even someone she should be looking for.” Lanny sat back in her chair. “There is no such thing as star-crossed lovers, Jamison. There would be no homing beacon in her heart to lead her to you.”

Jamison’s own heart leapt with just a pinch of hope. “But I’d know. I’d know she was out there. I’d find her.”

Skye smiled weakly. “Jamison, you’re forgetting, I’d have parents. Parents with DNA that would determine what I’d look like. Parents who may live on the other side of the Earth, not speak English, never travel to a large city. Would you comb the planet for me, Jamison? Would you keep looking until you found a little girl that seemed to have something familiar in her eyes?”

“There has to be some way.” Jamison wanted to bring the others in, have them brainstorm. Someone would have a good idea.

“And what if you did find me, Jamie?” She reached over and touched his face. “What if you find me in a couple of years? I’ll be two. How long will you wait? Until I’m twenty?”

“If I need to.” It sounded like a great idea.

“And you’ll be thirty-seven?”

“That’s not so bad. Mr. Evans—”

“Yes, Mr. Evans. Do you think it will be so easy, as a thirty-seven-year-old, to convince a twenty-year-old that she’s your long lost soul mate? What if she thinks you are a pervert? What if she falls in love with her high school sweetheart? It happens, you know.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“That’s what you need to understand, Jamie. It wouldn’t be this me. It would be some girl. She’d have my soul. I’d be the essence of her, but what about environment? Peer pressure? What if I die young and you spend your whole life looking for someone who’s not there?”

“There has to be someone who could tell me things.” His mind was racing, trying to come up with any possible scenario that would bring them back together.

Lanny cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Jamison. There will be no one, including me, who can help you.”

Jamison stood and walked to the windows, looking at the light, unreachable from all the layers of drapes covering it. For all he knew, it was a window into Heaven, not one that looked out on the gardens or fields beyond.

It was over. There was nothing he could do. No miracles that could keep them together. Suddenly he realized they were wasting precious time arguing. He spun awkwardly on the thick carpet.

“How much time do we have? Do you know?”

Skye pronounced sentence. “Until three o’clock tomorrow.”

He pulled out his phone. “Twenty-four hours, almost.”

“No, Jamie.” Skye looked him in the eye. “Twelve.”

He looked to Lanny as if the woman could grant them a reprieve.

“Three o’clock in the morning, son. I’m sorry.”

Cheated again! Where was a sturdy BMW dashboard when you needed one?

Then he remembered that blue car hood, out in the middle of a field. Maybe it wasn’t so out of place after all.

With the sour feelings he had for everyone involved in The Arrangement, he thought it best to get out of their precious white room.

“Come on, sweeting.” He pulled Skye to the door. “How the hell do we get out of here?”

She pushed on the panel and it bounced back toward them. Nothing special.

He gathered up their shoes and pulled her elbow to the front door.

“We’ll see you in the morning, then,” Lanny called.

“No, you won’t. We won’t waste time coming back here.”

“But Jamie, I have to come back! At three. I have to do it right.” Skye resisted his pull.

“And what if you don’t? Huh? They going to send dogs after you, or will you just...evaporate in my arms?”

“Bring her back.” Lanny was right behind them. “Let her do it right.”

The old bitch was lucky she didn’t get hit, but then again, she wouldn’t feel anything. It would still make Jamison feel pretty good for a while. Years maybe.

“Let her do it right. Can’t you see it’s important to her?”

Jamison swallowed, then looked at Skye. It was all there on her face. Lanny was right, damn her. “I’m sorry, sweeting. We’ll come back.”

Skye gave him a pained smile and nodded.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A mile away he could hear those boulders crashing down the hillside again, those noisy grains of sand in Skye’s hour glass, and he took the first dirt road he found. Winding back toward the mountain, he found the perfect spot. He rolled to a stop under a grandfather of a tree with its bare branches spread wide. Most of the leaves had fallen, making it the perfect place for watching stars.

It felt right, as if his granddad were there, watching over them. After all, he’d been the force to bring them together—he’d stay with them until it was over.

Jamison pulled a large quilt from the trunk and spread it on a clear stretch of grass. He took out the cooler but wasn’t hungry. In his mind, he was just playing house. Bedroom and a kitchen. What more would any couple need?

“There is something I haven’t told you.” Skye leaned back against the car. Her arms folded.

“If you’ve decided you don’t love me, I won’t believe you.”

“No. I love you, Jamie.”

He stood in front of her, wrapping her scarf perfectly around her neck. Leaning forward he rested his lips against her forehead. “What is it, sweeting?” he asked against her skin, then kissed it.

“I’m not taking the loophole.”

Jamison leaned back to look at her. “Not taking it?”

“Not taking it.”

“What does that leave you?”

“It leaves me a coward, Jamie. Can you still love a coward?”

“Oh, Skye, sweeting, baby! How could you think such a thing? Of course I still love you. I just don’t understand. Why would you not want a life? I thought you wanted to feel things, taste things. I thought you wanted to cry, though I don’t understand that either.”

She dropped her chin to her chest and he wrapped his arms around her, shaking her, wishing she would look up and smile at him. Wishing for a stupid red sticker on her hand so he could make her laugh.

“What is it? Why don’t you want those things? You deserve them, just like everyone else. You deserve them more! You’re wonderful. You couldn’t be evil if you wanted to. You don’t have to worry about not making it back to Heaven.”

“It’s not that. I do want it all. Of course I do. But don’t you see? I’d be allowing my memory to be taken from me. Any memory I might be able to hold onto—my memory of you, of us, of Kenneth. It would be like you asking Lucas to take your memories again. All of them. Would you want that?”

Jamison’s first reaction would have been to say “Hell no, I’d never do that.” But if he did, that would leave Skye thinking that her memory of him should be worth more than life itself, and that just wasn’t so.

He wanted her to live, to be happy. If he couldn’t be with her, then...then he couldn’t, but she deserved happiness. She deserved to fall in love with her high school sweetheart, just as he had.

Just as he had.

“You do understand, then? Why I don’t take the loophole?”

“No. You’re wrong, sweeting. And I’m going to prove it.”

She shook her head, not wanting to hear.

“Tell me the truth, now. Why you don’t want to have a life? Is it because you don’t want me to be alone in my misery? Do you think it would be more fair for me to be miserable if you are out there, doing your angel duties, pining away for me, too?”

“I don’t want to forget you.”

“And I don’t want to forget you, but I will. If that’s what it takes to keep you from worrying about me, I’ll do it. After the—” Oh, he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t think about tomorrow. It was miles and miles and miles away. He swallowed hard. “After I get back home, I’ll go to Lucas and ask him to take away my memory of you.” He hugged her to his chest to keep her from reading the lie on his face. He was beyond the ability to act anymore, not with the truth spilling out of his eyes and getting them both wet.

Finally, she spoke.

“You said you didn’t think you could survive my leaving. If you can’t remember, I won’t worry about you so much.”

“And if you take the loophole, your heart won’t be broken either, and I won’t have to worry about you.” He loosened his hold and stepped back. “So, no more talking about how horrible it will be, all right? We have until three o’clock to be together. You’ll take the loophole, promise?”

Eventually, she promised.

“And I will go to Lucas, and we’ll both live happily ever after. Maybe we’ll meet up with Granddad on the other side and have a good laugh.”

“That would be lovely.”

Jamison led her to the blanket and they sat. “That reminds me, though. Will you see Granddad when you get...home? Can you give him a message?”

“I’m sorry. I won’t see him. We won’t be in the same place.”

“Won’t you both be in Heaven?” Jamison took a deep breath and held it.

Skye laughed. “Of course we will. It’s just that Heaven isn’t like one great big room where everyone walks around shaking hands. Life moves kind of in a line. It has nothing to do with time, more to do with progress. Once you enter the flow of life, you are constantly moving, progressing, like a leaf in a stream.

“Sometimes you progress faster than other times. The water moves, you move, but always flowing in one direction.”

“Downhill?”

“Yes. But not in a bad way. Everything just flows. It would be against natural law for something to move against that flow. And since Kenneth is part of that flow, he’s moved on. And who knows where I’ll be dropped into the stream. It could be tomorrow. It could be fifty years ago. To The One who tends to the flow of life, time means nothing.”

Jamison couldn’t help but be excited.

“So, Skye. There is a chance I could go open a phone book and find you. Your life could be overlapping mine right now.”

“Yes. Of course. But Jamie, which name are you going to look for? And how long would you look before you gave up?” She ran her hand down one side of his face. “That’s why you must go to Lucas, when it’s over. I will not have you torture yourself like that.”

Jamison knew she was right. He wondered how many of those hoarder people, with three foot stacks of phone books in their houses, had started out loving a Somerled.

The hours flew by as they lay on the quilt and watched the sun go down and the stars come out. For her sake, he set an alarm on his phone; he only wished they’d gotten no reception up there. And maybe the car could have broken down. With his luck, though, Lanny would send out a search party for them around two so they’d have plenty of time to make it back to the ranch.

They talked about silly things; about how he needed to take the pig shed wood off the tree house. He tried to describe how it smelled, but gave up when he realized they could be discussing other things.

He told her how she was going to love flowers, how she could bite the tip of a honeysuckle bloom and taste what bees spend their short lives dreaming about. Cutting her finger, skinning her knee, and even being stung by those sweet-toothed bees were things that would pale in comparison to chocolate fudge, roller coasters, and band-aids when applied with a kiss.

They spent a good hour talking about kisses alone, then another one testing their theories. When they were done, Jamison nearly wished they’d stuck to the subject of food—nearly.

The final hour was anguish again. 2:05 he held her tight and sobbed, all promises and cheerful subjects forgotten. At 2:30 the alarm went off and he walked her, slowly, to the car, his eyes having finally emptied. By the time he left for home, those reservoirs would be full again, he was sure. Maybe he’d float half-way to Flat Springs. Save gas.

He drove up to the ranch, numb. Around back a single figure stood with a flashlight and waved them over.

“We’ll walk from here,” the Somerled told Skye and took her elbow.

“Let go of her.” Jamison couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice. He might have reacted differently if the guy hadn’t taken her arm, like he wasn’t giving her any choice.

He took her hand and started walking. She didn’t.

“You’re coming?” Skye’s mouth hung open.

“Of course I’m coming. I don’t want you looking at one of these dopes when you...at the last minute.”

She gifted him with a beautiful smile that wobbled through the few tears he’d neglected to shed earlier.

The field could have at least been a bit further away. He was so not going to be as tough as he’d planned.

Lanny stood there, smiling, damn her.

“I’m so glad we didn’t have to send the boys after you.”

Jamison realized she’d dug into his thoughts for that, that there had never been a plan to send anyone after them. He still toyed with the idea of not letting her go so he could see what would happen.

“Stop that.” Lanny gave him a little squeeze. “Be tough for her, Jamison. It’s the last thing you can give her.”

Buchanan was next. “Old Jamison gone, then?”

“Yes.”

Buchanan nodded.

He didn’t know anyone else. That Shawn kid tried to get her attention, but she ignored him, turning instead to Jamison. He started to lift his arms, but a tiny shake of her head stopped him.

“We’ve said it all, haven’t we?”

“Yeah. I guess we have. I love you, sweeting.”

“And I love you, Jamie. You’ll always be my high school sweetheart.”

She was backing away! He hadn’t noticed.

“And you’ll always be mine.” His voice was so small. Did she hear him?

“She heard.” Lanny put a hand on his shoulder.

Skye was near the center now. The Somerleds started humming.

He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t just stand there!

He pulled his shoulder out of Lanny’s grasp and ran to the center, throwing his arms over Skye’s shoulders as if she was that balloon and he couldn’t let her go.

Her face was twisted in a tearless cry.

“Let me go, Jamie.”

“Promise me! Promise me you’ll take the loophole!

“I promise, Jamie. Promise me you’ll speak to Lucas.” She lifted off the ground and put her hands out a little for balance. He would have grabbed her around the waist, but she shook her head. “Promise!”

“I promise.”

“I’ll love you forever.”

He fell to his knees, his empty arms wrapping around his body, his hands digging into his sides.

Skye was whisked into the air and was gone. Burning traces, like sparklers, rained through the air high above him and he watched until there was nothing left.

He rolled into a ball on the ground and waited for the Earth to open up beneath him. When that didn’t happen, he cried Skye’s name for hours, long after his throat was raw. That physical pain was a merciful distraction from the tear in his soul.

In a daze of misery, he mistook the brightening sky for some kind of reprieve, only to realize it was just the sun. It was too much. Fresh tears flooded his bloody throat and he ground his forehead against the soil and fell asleep cursing God.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Jamison woke to the crow of a sick-sounding rooster. A second later, he was hit with cruel joke number one, and number two. Two thirds of the people he loved on this Earth had been taken from it.

He tried to roll over, but something held firm against his back. Cornstalks. The crop circle was gone. Of course.

With little sense of direction in the tall corn, he made his best guess and headed uphill. If he ended up spending the day finding his way out, who cared?

When he emerged at the end of the row, a tractor rolled past him. The driver, dressed in white, tipped his straw hat to him. Jamison flipped the guy off.

He made it to his car and opened the back door to find his change of clothes. Then he changed them, right there, in front of God and everybody. He folded the white clothes and put them in a neat little pile, in the dirt, and...peed on them.

The ladies were standing on the back porch. He didn’t care. Nor did he care how many Somerleds watched him drive over the now-yellow pile, then back over them, then drive over them one last time on his way to the road.

Granddad might have liked that. Or maybe not. But the old man wasn’t around to complain.

By the time he got to the gas station, it was no use. He pulled over and searched his car for his phone. He’d left it in the white pants, then he’d peed on it.

There wasn’t even a bit of change in the car for the phone booth. Hell, there wasn’t even a phone booth to use.

Just as he was trying to remember what his mom had packed in the picnic—so he might trade the attendant something tasty for the chance to use his phone—a pickup pulled in next to him.

Somerleds. Too bad his bladder was empty.

Buchanan jumped out of the back of the truck and walked to Jamison’s window. He considered ignoring him, but rolled his window down an inch instead.

“Yeah?”

“Scoot over.” Buchanan opened his door before he ever thought to lock it and started to sit on him. He escaped to the passenger side just in time. Buchanan’s big white butt missed him by a hair. “You just sleep. We’ll get you home.”

But Jamison couldn’t sleep. He had too much crying yet to do.

***

Seven months later...

“You’re such an idiot.”

Ray grinned as he watched his paper airplane glide out the glassless window to join two-dozen others wedged in the baby cornstalks below, and Jamison was swamped by a wave of déjà vu.

He imagined a flash of brilliant red and yellow leaves covering the ground between tall drying stalks, a smattering of magazine-page airplanes adding to the chaos. Though considering all the times they’d sat up there in the tree house as kids, doing just what they were doing, it was no wonder he’d witnessed this scene before.

His memory blinked and he saw a crop circle superimposed on the field ablaze with afternoon light, but he knew there was only one time of day when most crop circles appeared...and disappeared. Three a.m., the exact hour he’d awakened every night for the past seven months. It was the hour when spirits moved between Heaven and Earth, or so he’d been told. Nurses at his granddad’s Recovery Center had confirmed that more often than not, a patient died between the hours of three and four in the morning.

Jamison believed some spirit brushed past him at that hour every night. He’d sit up, heart racing, eyes and ears straining to catch any little disturbance in the air. It had been getting worse lately. He could swear someone was thumping on him, trying to wake him up. Every night. Like clockwork.

Nothing ever happened. He’d get a drink of water and go back to bed, never feeling the presence again. Was it Granddad? Or was it a young girl in white, forever in white, dancing in his dreams, waking him with a kiss, then gone?

More like a bum internal clock, reset last fall, never to be reset again.

He’d known it was going to be hard to live without her. Bad days were expected, but when those bad times hit—bending him in half with a thought, his lungs collapsing from the weight of his heavy heart—he couldn’t imagine them ever re-inflating, or ever again being able to stand straight.

He was so tired all the time. What he wouldn’t give for a full night’s rest. A quiet house, a wood-burning stove, and a soft plaid blanket. But those things would only invite ghosts, memories draped in white. Better a dark motel room, a knocking radiator, and a broken clock, stuck on eight p.m.

What he wouldn’t take was another thing. His mom had tried to get him to try anti-depressants, but he wouldn’t do it. What he felt was a deeper problem than a couple of imbalanced chemicals. Could those drugs drain a hundred pounds from his heart or fill in the gaps of his bones where Skye should be?

Yeah, he remembered her name, though every time he said or thought it, a pain, fast as electricity and mean as a dull blade, would shoot through him. No. Better to remember her as the young girl in white, always in white, dancing around in his dreams.

“You lied to her,” Lucas had accused, the day after Buchanan had poured him out of his car and into his mother’s arms. “I was told you’d be coming to see me, to have alterations made to your memory.”

“I promised I’d come talk to you, and I have. We won’t discuss...her...again.”

And they hadn’t. They’d met with lawyers, drawn up contracts for the Somerleds to lease Granddad’s fields, and left the option for Jamison to end that lease with one planting-year’s notice.

He was going to be a lawyer, and if that didn’t work out, he’d have the farm. What he really meant, when he’d told his mother his plans, was that if the law profession kept alive his painful memories, he’d drop it like a freaking hot potato.

“I still think they’re aliens.” Ray said, bringing Jamison’s mind back to the tree house.

Jamison was confused. “When did you say they were aliens?”

Ray’s brow wrinkled and he shook his head. “I’ve always said it. Maybe not Skye.”

Pain! Breathe. Breathe.

“Of course, you got to know her a lot better than I did.” Ray looked at him and set down his airplane. “Hey man, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. My bad.”

“I’m fine,” Jamison chuckled. “It was a long time ago. I can hardly remember what she looks like anymore.”

“You don’t have a picture of her?”

“No. We were only, like, together for about a week or so.”

Lies. He knew every curve of her face, every flaw in her iris, and he knew to the minute how much time they’d had together. When you’re in mourning, calculators are very distracting.

“Here.” Ray was sliding something from his wallet. “You can have this. We went to breakfast the day of your grandpa’s funeral. I got a couple of pics with my phone.”

The pain arced through him again, catching on his heart, giving it a good zap until he noticed what Ray was holding out to him. A photo. A flash of someone in white. Jamison couldn’t make his arm move, afraid of the monster sizzle he might get if he focused.

“Go on, take it. I can print off another one.” Ray picked up Jamison’s hand and slid the photo between his fingers, then picked up his airplane and sent it on its spy mission into the corn.

“They’re not—” Jamison cleared his throat. “They’re not aliens, man. They’re just a bunch of farmers without the guts to face the real world, that’s all.”

Ray grinned. “I like that. Makes me feel like I’m braver than some at least.”

“Hey, kicking an addiction makes you braver than almost everyone, dude.”

Ray’s brows went up. “You sound like Skye.”

Pain. And this time it went on and on while Ray made more airplanes. Jamison figured, since it couldn’t get much worse, he may as well look at the picture and get it over with all at once. His heart couldn’t break into smaller pieces than it already had. It was just a glob of bloody ice chips as it was.

He looked down at his hand. Couldn’t tell. Turned the thick paper and held it closer.

He’d been wrong. His heart could shatter further, and did.

When Ray finally got hungry and left, Jamison was relieved. He had a face to stare at...

...and a stake-out to plan.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Jamison raided the kitchen for the first time in a long time. He hadn’t needed new clothes the whole school year, since he’d lost weight at about the same rate his bones were expanding. And he didn’t like being stalked at the mall by school girls. Surely not that much had changed about him since spring. Maybe that theory was right, that you became attractive to people you ignore. If so, he was the hottest thing on campus, because to him, his classmates were now the ghosts.

Mom crashed through the back door, juggling grocery bags and a heavy sack of potatoes.

“Food. Perfect timing.” He grabbed the potatoes and caught a bag of chips as it squeezed from a slippery sack and shot into the air.

His mom bent forward and set her bags on the ground, never taking her eyes off him.

“Who are you, and what have the aliens done with my sulky son?”

“Ray’s been talking about aliens today, too. But not about me—”

“I know. He thinks the Somerleds are aliens.”

“He told you that?”

She rolled her eyes and started picking through the groceries on the floor. Clutching lunch meats and cheese, she headed for the fridge.

“Jamison, honey, I hate to break it to you, but Ray’s been saying that ever since we moved back here. I don’t think you’ve heard a word anyone’s said since Daddy died.” She returned to the sacks and started digging again. “What brought your hearing back? And your appetite?”

She was a great mom. She knew the name of the girl in white was too painful for him to bear, and so she referred to that day, after the girl in white had disappeared from their lives, as “since Daddy died.” It was a way they dealt with their pain and acknowledged the sealed bottle of memories neither wanted to open.

He slipped a pack of Redvines into his waistband and pulled his t-shirt over it.

“I saw that. A little too smooth, if you ask me. You don’t shoplift, do you?”

“No, Mom. I’ve always been smooth.” Smooth kids attract less attention.

There was a flash of relief in his mom’s smile, then it was gone.

“I know it’s been hard, Jamie. And it’s still going to be hard for a while yet, but maybe something positive has come from your heartache.” Her eyes were tearing up. She was reaching for that damned sealed bottle.

“And that would be?”

“Maybe you can understand how hurt I was, why I took you and ran away.”

Okay, so she wasn’t really opening the bottle, just peeking through the glass.

“Yeah, Mom. I understand all of that now. If I’d thought you had anything to do with...her...leaving, I’d have taken off and never come back. I probably would have returned your letters, too.”

She hugged him briefly, then wiped her eyes to search the floor for more groceries. She needed cheering up, so he automatically reached into his pocket and pulled out the photo.

“Look. Ray had this.”

His mom took the small square, then gave him a worried look. “So this is why you’re raiding the kitchen?”

Jamison frowned and reached to take it back, but she held it out of reach.

“I’m asking, Jamie. Did this picture cheer you up? Is that why you’re hungry and suddenly listening to Ray?”

“Yes, okay? Yes.”

She handed it back. “I think maybe you should have it enlarged and tape it up all over the house, but that’s just my opinion.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I think an unexpected picture of your father would have done the same for me, whether it was healthy or not.”

“Really? No lectures about moving on with my life?”

“I think a body knows what it needs, and who are we to analyze it to death. If you want to spend the rest of your life remembering the best week of it, who am I to judge? It’s not like I haven’t done the same.”

She grabbed a pint of ice cream and headed for the couch, and for the first time in probably a year, he really saw her, saw how lonely she was, how empty she seemed.

Jamison vowed to do something about that, after he settled his own problems. After the stake-out.

***

At two-thirty, the alarm buzzed on his phone, but he was already awake. Hadn’t even slept. And for as tired as he’d been for the last month or two, or seven, he was surprised he hadn’t dozed off.

His mom had finally dragged herself up the stairs at one o’clock and left the couch to him. He lay, as if asleep, watching out from under his lashes for twenty minutes before he no longer felt like he was alone in the room. It was all he could do not to jump up and grab her, or at least try.

A very faint image, like a watermark in the air, wobbled at the foot of the couch, glowing just a bit around the edges, then fading again.

It was Granddad. Jamison suppressed a moan of disappointment. Of course he was thrilled to get a glimpse of the old man, but he wished he’d brought company.

And why hadn’t he gone on, to be with Grandma?

“Jamie, me boy, I’m fair disappointed in ye, I am. I leave my angel in yer care and ye’ve yet to lift a finger for her. She’s out there, lad. She’s waitin’ on ye, and ye sit and let precious time pour away. Baagh!” The image struck out and thumped his foot and Jamison sat up, but as he did so, the image disappeared.

“I know it’s you Granddad. I heard what you said.” He waited for some response. “Granddad?”

He checked his phone. Three o’clock. Right on time.

“Granddad?” Nothing. “What? Are you, afraid to be seen, Scotsman?”

Something hit his foot again, and Jamison choked on his spit.

“Granddad, you have to tell me where she is.”

Nothing.

“You can’t tell me?”

A soft thump on his foot this time. Lanny’d been wrong. He did have someone who could help him from the other side! He did have a chance!

“Granddad? Is she mortal?”

Nothing.

“Come on, old man. Once for yes, twice for no.”

***

“Lucas, I want to talk to you.” Jamison forced himself to walk, not run, toward his neighbor, who was thankfully up early.

“About the wheat?”

“About Skye.”

Lucas stopped and frowned. “So, you’re back to speaking her name?”

“Yes.” Jamison grinned.

“I’m not to interfere.” Lucas turned and walked away.

Jamison rolled his eyes and followed along. “You want to interfere, you know you do.”

Lucas stopped. “You don’t know me very well, do you Shaw?”

“I thought you were going to call me Jamison?”

“What do you want, boy?”

“Tell me where she is.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

Lucas couldn’t lie about it, but Lucas wasn’t the only one he planned to ask.

“Okay, then tell me something else.”

“If I do, will you leave me to my work?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll answer if I can.”

“Do you know the way to Lanny’s ranch? It seems someone has misplaced that information in my mind, and on the computer.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Lucas grinned.

“Yes, I know the way to her ranch. Now you have to honor the bargain and go away.”

“I lied.”

“You thought this might surprise me?”

“I guess not.” Jamison leaned back against the fence.

“Go away, Jamison.”

At least he was calling him by a friendly name again.

Jonathan joined them from the direction of the house.

“Is that our Jamison? You’re looking well.” Jonathan ruffled his hair and looked into his face. “Better than well. You look like you’ve found hope again, son.”

“Don’t encourage him.” Lucas stomped away. Jonathan and Jamison fell in step behind the broad white shoulders.

“Why not?” Jonathan grinned. “Hope is a good thing.”

“He hopes to find Skye.” Lucas stopped and pulled on a pair of work gloves from his back pocket, all the while frowning his fiercest at Jamison.

“No.” Jonathan turned Jamison toward him and looked him over.

“Yes. And you’re going to help me.” Jamison winked. He liked Jonathan. He had hopes for him.

“We’re going to interfere?” Jonathan looked at Lucas.

“We’re not—”

“Yes, you’re going to interfere.”

***

It was afternoon before the trio started up the canyon to the ranch. Lucas drove and muttered in a language Jamison had never heard. Jonathan rested his head against the window as if he were asleep.

“I thought you guys don’t need sleep,” Jamison whispered to Lucas.

“We meditate.”

An angry female-sounding voice in Jamison’s head suggested he not push his luck, and to head back down the road, with or without the vehicle.

“Lanny’s not pleased,” Jonathan announced to the window without opening his eyes.

Lucas was smiling, probably in anticipation of a Lanny-style set-down aimed at Jamison.

They pulled around to the back of the house and got out. It reminded him of the last time he’d been there. Stripping next to his car, driving over a pile of nice white clothes...

“And don’t forget you pissed on them first.” Lanny came at him like a bull, like she might have been the one to have washed those clothes. “And flipped people off.” She stopped a couple feet away, but she could still reach him. She glanced at Lucas and nodded, then turned back to Jamison. “And don’t let’s forget lying in the field and cursing God.”

Jonathan’s brows flew high. “And what did he piss on?”

“The white clothes we gave him the first time he was here.”

Lucas closed his eyes and sighed.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. All I can say is I was out of my head.”

Lanny looked sideways at him for a minute, then pulled him into her arms for a hearty hug. He hid his shock and grinned over her shoulder at a scowling Lucas, then tossed in a wink.

By the look on the big man’s face, the wink might have bought him a long walk home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

A short Somerled woman looked him up and down, then handed him a set of white clothes. The grin on her face told him she’d seen him without them. It wasn’t going to happen again, he promised her, as he edged around her into the bathroom.

He didn’t know why they all couldn’t sit around the kitchen table and talk things over. Then he remembered that the rest of the Somerleds here had no idea about the loophole. Yet. Surely they’d all get their chance, especially living alongside Lanny, the keeper of the keys, so to speak. The old woman probably had to wait until each of them was ready, though.

“Who are you calling an old woman?” Lanny stood at the end of the hallway waiting for him.

“Sorry.”

“You are not.” She reached up and ruffled his hair as he walked past her into the room. What was with that? Affection? From the non-mortals?

There were three chairs in front of her desk. Lucas and Jonathan stood as Lanny entered, then gawked at the details of the room as they lowered themselves back onto their seats.

“Skye seemed to think yours lacks a woman’s touch, Lucas.” Lanny’s tone was suddenly reverent.

“I believe she was right.”

“Can you bear the light this time, Jamie?”

Tentatively, Jamison raised his gaze until he was looking at the incredible chandelier. The finely focused prisms were painfully intense, but he was able to look at it for nearly a minute before his eyeballs cried uncle.

“Interesting.” Lanny relaxed against the back of her chair. “You lied, when you were here last time. You told her you would have your memory of her erased so she wouldn’t have to carry the burden of your heartache.”

“Yes, but I couldn’t do that.”

“You knew you were lying when you made the promise.”

“Yes.”

“That has consequences, but we’ll talk about that later. You have a question to ask.”

“You already know what I want.”

Lanny folded her hands in her lap and leaned back against the leather winged chair.

“I want Skye, back in my life, in my arms. I want her to know me, love me, remember me. I want her to be happy. Is that too many wishes? How many do I get?”

Lanny smiled. “You don’t want all those things. Not all at once, in any case. What point would there be to go on, if you had everything you wanted?”

“I’d deal with it.”

“I’m sure you’d like to try. But maybe Skye is happy where she is and doesn’t want to change her life, or learn about a past existence. Are you willing to walk away, if she doesn’t need you?”

“I am.”

Lucas frowned. “May I ask a question?”

“You may.” Lanny stood and wandered over to one of the mirrors.

“How is it you are able to know of Skye’s location?”

Lanny grinned over her shoulder. “Let’s just say, I anticipated Jamison’s choice not to forget, and I’ve decided to call in a favor, from someone that may know.” She smiled into the mirror and bent at the waste as she stepped back from it.

A bare foot extended from the glass toward the carpet, a glowing, white-robed figure emerged, carefully, into the room. It certainly looked like a man, if it weren’t giving off so much painfully white light.

Please don’t be God. Please don’t be God.

When the figure’s head snapped up, glaring at him, Jamison had to cover his eyes with his arm to shield them from razors of light tearing at them, digging into his brain. If that was God, he was in trouble.

No way would there not be blood on his sleeve. If he was about to die there, however, he took comfort knowing he’d ruin Lanny’s carpet.

“How dare you, woman!” the white being screeched.

The words were barely discernable beneath all the un-Earthly noises coming from its mouth. At least he assumed they were coming from its mouth. Maybe it was doing the Lanny thing and screaming in their heads.

“How dare you force me to kill a mortal?!”

Jamison looked up then, but he looked at Lanny and kept a hand between his eyes and the light.

She lifted her head and smiled at it. “You did not kill it, Adrien. Look.” She gestured in his direction.

Jamison could feel the thing moving closer, could see the brightness of it in the mirror behind Lanny. It was just a man, with white hair, white clothes, surrounded by shards of light, as if he was wearing the mirror he came from.

“Don’t be a fool, Jamison. Don’t look in his eyes.”

Lanny said it just in time. He’d been preparing to do just that.

“It was a mistake to bring me here, woman. You should have never been given such...freedoms.”

“Powers, Adrien. Not freedoms. Get over it. I wish to know where a soul has been sent.”

“The female we discussed before? One of the Final Host?” Even with all the screeching, Jamison could hear the distaste.

“Yes.”

“What do you offer in return?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure? You would not offer me worship?”

“No.”

“Give me her name.”

Lanny screeched at Adrien. There were no words beneath the distortion. If that what was spoken in Heaven, Granddad was seriously pissed.

“She is there.” Adrien backed away from Lanny, as if he didn’t trust her, leaving the way he’d come, stepping backward into the mirror.

Jamison felt like he was watching a video clip, in reverse.

Lanny stood stock still, staring at the mirror, a look on her face of incredible...longing. Had she wanted to follow the creature? Was she antsy to go Home too? Or did she feel something for Adrien?

“Tend your own business, Jamie.” She turned away from the mirror, none too pleased to have been interrupted, he thought.

He looked around, but Lucas and Jonathan weren’t in their seats; they were on the floor with their foreheads to the carpet.

“He’s gone.” Lanny turned toward the mirror behind her. “He just couldn’t stand to leave my Place of Perfection perfect, could he?” She reached up and ran her fingers over lines etched in the silver surface.

“How is it Jamison survived?” Jonathan’s voice was hushed.

“I’m not sure.” She didn’t sound like she wanted to waste time caring.

“You risked his life.” Lucas stood and put his hand on Jamison’s shoulder.

“I didn’t. I knew if he could bare the chandelier, I wouldn’t need to send him from the room. Who do you suppose made the chandelier?”

“Adrien?” Lucas and Jonathan looked up. Jamison’s eyes had had enough for one day, so he didn’t.

“Yes. Adrien.” She looked at Jonathan. “Help me read this.”

Lucas slapped him on the shoulder and joined the other two. Jamison decided to stay as far away from Adrien’s mirror as possible, just in case the guy decided to reach out and surprise someone. He backed against the wall—the wall right next to the door.

“That can’t be right.” Lucas pointed to a mark. “What are the chances of her being given the name Skye?”

“Zero.” Lanny looked for Jamison, found him, then looked back at the mirror.

“And she’s seventeen. That’s a little convenient, for Jamison.” Jonathan glanced at him and frowned.

“Jamison? Tell me. Why did you come looking for Skye, when you’d been told Lanny wouldn’t be able to help you?” Lucas was probing his mind. No apologies, no warning. And Jamison couldn’t think of a thing to stop him. “Why now, son?”

“My granddad came to see me, to tell me that she was out there, needing me. That’s why I’m not worried about her being happy without me. She’s waiting. Somehow, she’s waiting.”

Lanny grabbed the mirror on both sides and scanned the markings.

“Lucas, is it true? Is her name really Skye?”

“It seems so. And she’s seventeen.” Lucas frowned.

Jamison leapt from his seat and hopped around the room like a little boy who’s just been told Santa was on his way. Forgetting his paranoia, he looked in the mirror, tried to see a little bit of Eternity in spite of the three angels blocking the other mirror. He imagined Skye standing there, next to him. He had no guess what she’d look like, but he imagined kind of a blurred version of the photo in his wallet.

She could have warts and a gap in her teeth and half her hair falling out and she’d be beautiful.

“Sit down, Jamie. I’ve got some bad news for you, too.”

He held up his hands. “Wait. Don’t spoil it. Give me just another minute to be happy. It’s been so long. And just think how much longer it might have been if Granddad hadn’t told me.”

“Tell me about this grandfather. Who is he?” Lanny tapped her finger on one mark. Jonathan looked closer.

“He was Skye’s assignment.”

“Your deceased grandfather?”

“Yeah. I guess he’s been trying to tell me for a while, but I didn’t figure it out until last night. I had to catch him, see—”

“Your grandfather has intervened from the other side?”

“Yeah, I guess. Kind of. Why? What does it matter?”

Lucas started laughing.

“I think I know how she got named Skye. He always told her it was a fine Scottish name.” Jonathan laughed too, but Lanny was vigorously shaking her head.

“If your grandfather broke the barrier, interrupted the flow, others will know about it. They can trace what he’s done!”

She tapped the mirror again. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

Jonathan straightened. “Henderson.”

“Her last name?” Jamison tried to stay seated, but he couldn’t.

“Henderson, Nevada.” Lucas looked at Jonathan.

The pair looked at Lanny, and Jamison wished he, too, could read minds.

“Lucas, Jonathan, listen to me carefully. You may not intervene. No matter who asks it of you, you may not intervene on Skye’s behalf. Only Jamison can do that. You can, however, get his mother out of Flat Springs. Arrange it.”

She turned to Jamison, pity all over her face.

“Jamie, honey. You’re going to be on your own. You’re all she’s got, and she won’t know you, won’t trust you, and won’t believe a word you say. If you get separated, we’ll never find her again. Do you understand?”

“Of course I don’t understand. Who the hell are ‘they’?” Bullshit was bullshit, even if you were standing on sacred ground.

“Gabriella and her followers. The only real danger to Somerleds on Earth.”

Lucas and Jonathan headed for the door. Jamison threw his body in front of it. No one was leaving until he understood what the freak was going on.

“Gabriella who?” he demanded.

Lanny looked longingly into Adrien’s mirror. “Gabriella,” she whispered. “Gabriella...Somerled.”

THE END

Excerpt from Freaking Off the Grid

Book Two of The Angels of Somerled

~ CHAPTER ONE ~

Damn! Her stalker-ghost was back.

Skye swallowed her surprise, but she couldn’t get her heart to act like it was no big deal. She glanced around. Her other customers didn’t seem to notice a thing.

He sat humming in a booth, eating a ghostly meal that was as gray as he was. She could almost smell it. Disgusting.

The see-through Scotsman absentmindedly held out his cup to be topped off and she turned toward him with the coffee. He laughed and pulled the cup away before she made a fool of herself.

Very funny. She’d nearly said it aloud. Now that he knows where I work, I’ll be pouring coffee on the floor every day...until I’m fired.

She replaced the steaming pot on its burner, gestured for her ghost to follow, then made her way through the kitchens, toward the back door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The owner’s daughter, Jessica Garza, stood with the new dish washer, her fingers pausing in their slide down the guy’s chest. She must have realized no one was left in the dining room to wait on her stupid tables.

“Cigarette break.” Skye wiggled the door handle. Locking the back door at Fernando’s was hardly necessary; it was a bugger to open.

“You don’t smoke.”

“I’m starting today. I’ll be five minutes.” The door popped and Skye was outside and pushing it shut before Jessica could stop her. Her Royal Laziness would never risk a nail or a bead of sweat to work it open again, and she didn’t have a ghost of her own to do it for her.

Skye turned. The old fellow was waiting for her, sitting on a box that wouldn’t hold her own weight, let alone his, if he were real. It was hard to look him in the eye. She kept waiting for the cardboard to collapse and drop him on his butt. Though she didn’t want to see that kilt go flying. He had enough of a problem keeping his knees together.

She pushed her fists down into the deep pockets of her apron. “What do you want?”

“Nary a kind word, Skye, my love?”

“No. Nary a one. You never bring good news, old man.” That was an understatement; every bad day of her life had started with a visit from her ghost. It had been such a pissy morning, she should have been expecting him.

“I’ll have you know they took a score off my age. I’m no’ auld anymore.”

Not old then, but he still looked fifty.

“Fine. What do you want young man?”

“Auch. Dinna flatter me so.” The old fart grinned and batted his eyes.

She couldn’t help but smile, but the smile didn’t last long.

“Mr. Jamison, I haven’t got time for this. Really. Can’t you come visit me later? After work? When I’m alone in my car, maybe?”

“Time’s no’ on my side either, lassie. I need a promise.”

“A promise?” He’d asked for a promise before, but she couldn’t remember what it was. She’d been about ten at the time. “What kind of promise?”

“I need ye to stay put.” He nodded once, hard, then folded his arms like he was preparing for an argument.

“I get off at eight. Is that long enough?”

“Oh, I don’t know if that will do.” He started pulling on his chin, looking at the ground, then at the sun blazing down on his silly golf hat.

“Listen, Mr. Jamison. I’m not asking for extra hours. I’ve been here since six and I’m working a double shift as it is. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.” Standing there wasn’t helping, but she wasn’t about to ask what bad luck he saw in her future. Surely nothing could be worse than working a double. “Whatever you have going on, could you just leave me out this time?”

He was a nice old guy. Asking politely might just get him to go away and take his bad Karma with him.

“I’ve a bad feelin’. I need ye to stay put. Ye shouldna be out here even now.”

The only danger she could see would be losing her job for standing around talking to empty boxes. Against her better judgment, she asked, “Why?”

“I canna say.” He scratched his head as if he’d suddenly forgotten why he’d come.

She didn’t buy it. He’d never clammed up before.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Canna. ‘Tis not for me to ken the future, but I ken well enough when the sky bodes ill.”

The Nevada sky was blue—perfect—except for a line of fluff left in the wake of a jet. He noticed it too.

She rolled her eyes.

“’Tis not this sky I speak of, lass, so you can keep those eyes in yer noggin’, aye?” He raised one brow. He did that a lot.

“You see a different sky?”

“I do. I do. Storm clouds are spinnin’ o’er yer head, lass. Hell will be breakin’ loose, it will.”

“Today?! Why today? Can’t I just have a little peace?” She hated whining, but he brought out the child in her.

“Peace is not mine to give, Skye, my love. I’m lucky I’ve escaped long enough to warn ye.”

“Escaped?!” Great. The worst days of her life could all be laid at his feet, and he was a lunatic. But then again, so was she. Seeing ghosts was anything but sane.

“I dinna have a better word for it, sweetheart. And there’s no time to debate.” He looked at the brick wall behind him and winced. “I’m caught. Get inside. And bide as long as ye can. Hide in a bletherin’ box if ye must, but stay put! Help should be a-comin’.”

He jumped off the box and disappeared before his feet hit the asphalt.

It was typical, that paranoid thing he did, giving her the impression he was always being chased. She’d never thought about why, never imagined he might have broken out of some mental ward in Hell. His visits had always ended the same way, though, with that look over his shoulder, and the announcement, “I’m caught.” He seemed a little more upset than usual, however, and she wondered if she’d ever see him again. Or maybe there was never a sure way of catching a ghost, and he’d be back when she tucked herself into her car that night.

Maybe it was his wife doing the catching.

Skye wiggled and jiggled the door handle, laughing at the image of a large ugly woman with a rolling pin chasing Mr. Jamison through brick walls. She glanced back at the box he’d been sitting on.

Hide in a bletherin’ box if ye must, but stay put!

The old man was out of luck...no big boxes today.

For more on this book and series, please visit — www.llmuir.weebly.com.

Excerpt from BLOOD FOR INK

Book One of The Scarlet Plumiere Series

~ CHAPTER ONE ~

Capital Journal, Fiction Section, Friday, February the First

A rumor currently circulates among the gentry in The Grand City that the white/blond Viscount of F had a visitor one recent morning, or rather, visitors, as the woman who claimed to be his wife brought with her a pair of identical offspring closely resembling the earl himself. Piercing blue eyes and straight white hair adorned both cherubs whose mother was blessed with the dark hair of her pure Spanish ancestors.

Not believing the woman, or his own eyes it seems, The Viscount of F shooed the little family from his noble steps and into the halls of a certain hotel where they have taken up residence until a higher authority might be able to hear their tale.

It was also rumored that the mistress of Viscount of F has moved out of his grasp as she deemed it unwise to associate with a man who possesses untrustworthy…eyes.

Stay tuned to see if the current fiancée of this poor-sighted creature is also saved from his company. --The Scarlet Plumiere

“Well, Stanley, you can’t very well sue the paper for libel when they did print this in the fiction section.” Ramsey Birmingham, Earl of Northwick kept a straight face, but only just. His friend was not the first to be chastised by the red-penned writer. That he was being so dramatic about it, so early in the day, was an invitation for torment.

“But North! I tell you there was no woman. No wife. No children with my blue eyes and white hair.”

“White hair, even. Not blonde.” The Marquis of Harcourt, the worst tease among them, prodded poor Stanley from behind, then walked around the man and offered him a much needed drink.

“It’s early.” Stanley waited for someone to agree.

“Drink!” Harcourt slapped him on the back, nearly spilling the shot of courage.

Stanley needed no more prompting and emptied the glass, then stared into its empty depths. “Yes, white hair. There are no such creatures, I assure you. I’ve only been to Spain two years ago…oh dear.”

“Well, the vixen got that right at least.” Earnest Meriwether, the unfortunately named Earl of Montpelier, chimed in from the far stacks of North’s immodest library. Oh, his given name was spot-on, as if his mother might have read the sobriety in his eyes the moment he was born, but the family name was far afield. Monty was deadly serious, and deadly otherwise. After having served together in France, North was no longer as dedicated to England as he was to his sober friend; if the Earl of Montpelier decided to turn coats, North would turn his as well rather than face his dark friend in any skirmish. No man did so and lived.

“But Monty, I’m telling you, there is no such woman.” Stanley looked at a chair, but North shook his head, as if to say the morning’s business was so serious he should keep on his toes.

Stanley straightened and lifted his chin, poor man. So easily manipulated. The Scarlet Plumiere really shouldn’t have picked on such a harmless chap. North was of half a mind to hunt her down and tell her so.

“Well, the Scarlet Plumiere has yet to accuse an innocent man, even if she is a bit inaccurate on the specificity of the crime.” Monty joined the rest, eyes fixed on an open volume of Shakespeare--the red leather set. He lowered his dark form into the seat Stanley had been eyeing.

“He’s right, of course. Let’s hear it, Stanley. What have you done?” Harcourt hooked a leg over the corner of a table and leaned forward for the details, his interest and enthusiasm more than making up for Monty’s lack of both.

Of course, Stanley broke.

“I’ve done nothing! Nothing the rest of our lot hasn’t done from time to time.”

North couldn’t bring himself to prod the Viscount further. The poor man had asked his three closest friends to meet that morning to find a solution to his newest problem--as fresh as the morning paper. They really should get to the business of helping the chap.

Harcourt was in no such hurry. He folded his arms and lifted a tan brow.

“Stanley, you’re trying our patience. Spit out the confession now or I don’t see us making much of an attempt to save your sorry hide.”

Stanley flushed from his pinned cravat to the roots of his transparent-like hair. That particular shade of red may well have been the only color that did not become the over-blessed Viscount.

“I set Ursula aside yesterday.”

“You what?” Three baritones in unison sounded almost rehearsed.

North shook his head. “I’m sorry, old boy. You did what?”

“He set her aside.” Harcourt slapped his knee.

North turned to Monty. “He set her aside.”

“Yes, blast you. I set her aside!”

Monty closed the book and set Shakespeare on the overstuffed arm. “Pardon my slow wit, but just how does one put an Ursula aside?”

Monty was right. Stanley--and his Winter-white hair--had enjoyed the pick of females since the four of them were in knee breeches together. Now he had the pick of all mistresses and he’d chosen very well. It was quite possible Stan, old pal, was the first man to actually end an affair with the woman. Ursula did the shopping for a new lover. Ursula let that lover know when he was no longer welcome. But Stanley Winters, Viscount Forsgreen, had set her aside.

“I suppose he picked her up by the shoulders, turned, and set her down again.” Harcourt demonstrated with an invisible model, then dusted his hands. “Out of his way, presumably. Is that accurate, Stanley?”

Stanley’s blush looked to be seeping into his actual hair.

“I let her go.”

“Aah. Like fishing, then? You took the hook from her mouth, so to speak, and put her back in the water.” North couldn’t help but laugh at Harcourt’s miming skills.

“Can she swim, do you suppose?” Monty’s usual sobriety fled. He dissolved into laughter at his own jest, as did they all—all except poor Stanley of course.

The Viscount stood straighter, if possible. “You know perfectly well what I mean. I ended our affair. I told her she was free to do as she pleases.”

North nodded and composed himself. “And you paid her a nice settlement, of course.”

“Actually, she wouldn’t take it. She wasn’t at all pleased that I offered it.”

Harcourt bent over, giggling, and dove onto the davenport like a man gut-shot.

Monty rubbed a hand over his face, shook his head, then stiffened. “That has to be it! Ursula found the Scarlet Plumiere and had you punished. Severely punished, it appears; if night follows day, and things play out the way the SP has predicted, you, my dear Viscount of F, are about to be released from your engagement.”

“But that’s why I let her go, you see? It would be poor form to keep one’s mistress while one is preparing for marriage, and honeymoon, and fatherhood, and…”

“And death.” Having solved the mystery, Monty’s nose was back in the book.

“Yes, that too. If Irene Goodfellow breaks it off, Mother will have me fed to the fish, and even though she’s doddering, she’ll find a way to bear another son to replace me.”

“It’s unsettling the way that woman tosses that threat about,” North admitted. “It fairly gives me nightmares thinking about it.”

“Well, thinking about it has put me off seeing Ursula.”

“Quite so. Quite so.” North nodded, thinking. The mystery was solved, but what were they to do about it?

“It would be best to have her put down, Stanley. For your own good,” Harcourt mumbled against a cushion.

“Who? The Scarlet Plumiere? I can’t have a woman murdered, even if she’s essentially ruined my life with her blasted article. I can’t believe you’d suggest such a thing.”

“Oh, not her, man. Your mother.” Harcourt rolled onto his back and spoke to the ceiling. “Have your mother put down like the old horse that she is and enjoy the reprieve. Marry in another ten years.”

“Put down my mo...you’re mad!”

“No. Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea a’tall.” Monty closed his book again and tossed it onto the table.

“All right. You’re both mad. I won’t be having my mother...put down, for God’s sake.”

“Oh, Stanley. Do keep up.” Monty folded his hands and grinned. He must have had a grand idea; he didn’t smile easily. “I mean the SP, of course, not your dear saintly horse-of-a-mother.”

“You mean it? You can stand here in front of God and good whisky and talk of having a woman murdered? Because all of London knows it’s a woman writing those articles. Good lord, man. Perhaps I don’t know you at all. Perhaps you could actually do the deed yourself!”

“Oh, I would rather not do the deed myself, of course. But I suppose if I must...”

North couldn’t take it anymore. He tossed up his hands.

“I surrender as well, Monty. What are you thinking? You can’t be talking about having a woman murdered.”

“Not murdered. Put down. Taken out of the picture--or the Capital Journal at least.” Monty leaned in and lowered his voice. “The only way to control a woman these days, gentlemen, is to marry her off.”

Harcourt rolled back onto his face and mumbled, “I was afraid you would say that.”

Callister stepped into the library with a small white box tied with crimson ribbon. North nodded his butler over and reached for the package, but the old man shook his head.

“I beg your pardon, my lord, but this just arrived for Viscount Forsgreen.”

Something yawned and stretched inside North’s breast, something that had been sleeping for years. Usually, when it woke, he drugged it with Brandy until it slept again. He wasn’t sure, but it might have been his soul. And with some sort of premonition which he’d never been known to possess, he suspected that thing within him would somehow be affected by Stanley’s box.

He watched, as did they all, while Stanley slowly pulled a crimson tail, as if they expected a cat to jump out from beneath it.

The ribbon fell away. Nothing happened. Stanley sat the box upon the table, lifted the lid, and set it aside. He frowned, looked at North, then reached into the box. He pulled out a pair of spectacles...and a bubble burst in North’s chest.

He laughed.

Stanley didn’t seem to understand.

“Who did you tell about this meeting, Viscount F?” Monty had to raise his voice to be heard.

North laughed harder. Watching Stanley’s face as realization dawned, struck him as particularly amusing.

“Poor eyesight.” Harcourt’s grin widened further than the confines of his face. “I say, she’s a clever minx.”

North agreed. The Scarlet Plumiere was clever. And had he a heart, she might have just won it over with her wit alone.

For more on this book and series, please visit — www.llmuir.weebly.com.

Excerpt from GOING BACK FOR ROMEO

A Muir Witch Project

~ PROLOGUE ~

Castle Ross, East Burnshire, Scotland 1494

Odd.

The stone closest to Laird Montgomery Ross’s foot looked to be the same shape as the hole remaining in the side of his sister's tomb, but he refused to reach for it.

"Nay.  I'm not ready to be finished." Monty whispered his complaint to God, for surely it was God's hand that wrought such an appropriately shaped thing.

Behind him, one of the priests cleared his throat.  Monty knew without looking it had been the fat one who could not cease rubbing his hands together, even while Monty’s sister was led inside her would-be grave.  The bastard had been rubbing them for a fair two days, since he’d arrived to try Isobelle as a witch. No doubt they were itchy for the feel of a woman’s neck since Monty had cheated them out of wringing his sister’s.

He could let the priest live, or he could be silent, but Monty could not manage both.

"If you canna seem to clean those hands, Father,” he said without turning away from his morbid creation, “I'd be happy to rid you of them before I finish my task here.  I'm sure my sister wouldna mind the wait."

A gasp of outrage was followed by silence, although the Great Hall was filled to the corners with his clan. Those who could not find space inside would soon enough hear of each stone lovingly placed as their laird buried his sister alive within their very hall, upon the stone dais, behind the great Ross Chair. Hopefully they would remember Isobelle’s bravery and not how oft his tears mingled with the mortar.

None breathed, none dared rub their hands. How could he possibly continue? How could he not?

“Nay, I wouldna mind a bit, if you’re quick about it, brother mine.” Isobelle’s voice echoed eerily from the tomb and she smirked at him from within the tiny patch of light the same shape as the odd stone. “In fact, toss the bloody things in here with me and I’ll leave them at the gates of hell. Himself can collect them when he arrives.”

Her unholy laughter no doubt had even the dogs wishing they could cross themselves, but it was music to Monty’s ears. The Kirk’s men allowed her no blanket, but she’d have the image of revenge to keep her warm.

“Isobelle!” Morna screamed. Monty’s other sister stood off to his right, restrained by her puny Gordon husband. “’Tis all my fault. Forgive me.”

Isobelle’s sober face came forward to fill the hole as she searched for Morna, giving Monty one last glimpse of red hair.

“Morna, love. Dinna greet. The faery will come to make it all right again. Watch for the faery...and keep away from your husband!”

“Silence!” the robed bastard roared.

Isobelle laughed again, backing away from the hole. After all, what could the man do to her now?

Monty would not ruin her00 trust in the blasted faery, but if the creature ever placed its magic toe on Ross land, it would be dead before it ever took a breath of heathered air.

‘Twas time.

He looked at the stone.

‘Twas meant.

“I love you, sister mine.” His words were quiet, for Isobelle alone.

“And I you, Monty. Blow us a kiss.”

When he raised his crusted fingers to his lips, his palm filled with tears but they washed none of the nightmare away. He blew a kiss that was instantly returned.

“I’m stayin’ right here, pet. Ye’re no’ alone.”

“Get on, then.” The whimper in her voice was slight. “I’ll have a wee nap if ye’ll but douse the light.”

With a final wink she disappeared.

Monty reached for the stone, dipped its edges in muck, and pushed it home, breaking his heart in the doing. After long moments of stillness, his hands slowly opened and dropped away.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Morna swoon, but someone else would have to catch her—someone without mud or blood on his hands. Morna wouldn’t welcome his comfort anyhow. She claimed it was her fault, but he knew both sisters blamed him.

If he’d have known the outcome, would he have acted differently? What kind of bastard would not?

There was no stopping the twisting of his face, the sob from his chest. He turned his head to the side and bellowed, “Out!”

Nearly everyone fled or slithered from the hall, all but The Kirk’s henchmen who would stay until they believed his sister dead. Only then did he hear the muffled sobs of Isobelle. She sounded as if she were deep in the ground.

His heart shuddered with cold. Dear God, what had he been thinking? His plan was madness; she would never last. Not enough time. He had to get her out!

He reached for the odd stone...and was struck soundly from behind.

CHAPTER ONE

Castle Ross, Present Day

This wasn’t the first time Jillian MacKay had felt a holy-crap-moment coming on. She wouldn’t worry about it now, except for two things. First, her premonitions of holy-crap-moments were never wrong. And second, she was only minutes away from testing The Curse of the Ross Clan.

Jilly was alone for the moment, poised to enter the Great Hall of Castle Ross, the right heel of her green boots rocking nervously while she waited for the tour group to catch up to her. No sirens sounded. No trumpets announced that a simple girl from Wyoming was about to do anything noteworthy, even though, for the first time in her life, she thought she may actually be about to do something noteworthy.

She took a deep breath. Then another. Then tentatively stepped into the dimly lit Hall, turned to her left, and froze.

Holy, holy crap.

Silence stirred from its dreamy corner and rose to fill the Hall, pushing into every nook and cranny. There was no echo of her steps on the wood floor, no muffled voices of the tour group nearing the massive outer door—as if this moment was so pure, so important, that sound could not be allowed to sully it.

And all she’d done was look at his face.

For more on this book and series, please visit — www.llmuir.weebly.com.

Acknowledgements

Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow would not have been possible without a truck-load of faith expressed by my husband and kids every time they brought me an icy drink, washed the pans, and did the laundry so I could stay in the zone.

Thanks to three wonderful beta-readers, Sierra, Lexie, and Keara. Without your honest feedback and dishonest flattery, I would have never dared go on.

Thanks to Diane for igniting the fire currently in my belly. And to Cori...for giving Freaking the old college try!

And finally, thanks to my posse: Kelli Ann for helping me find the perfect wings for the cover, to Annie for not cringing when hearing the title for the one thousand and fourteenth time, Cindy for letting me in when I needed reassurances, and Tiffinie for always being on late at night.

One day, we’ll put you all on a cover!

About the Author

L.L. Muir lives with Superman in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains. They are raising numerous super-heroes for society, but none will wear tights. Currently, she writes historical romances, both Scottish and Regency, and paranormal fiction for both adult and young adult readers. She is represented by Three Seas Literary Agency.

Check her website often— www.llmuir.weebly.com ––for up and coming adventures. There is always something exciting in the works.

Table of Contents

- ABOUT THE BOOK

- DEDICATION

- CHAPTER ONE

- CHAPTER TWO

- CHAPTER THREE

- CHAPTER FOUR

- CHAPTER FIVE

- CHAPTER SIX

- CHAPTER SEVEN

- CHAPTER EIGHT

- CHAPTER NINE

- CHAPTER TEN

- CHAPTER ELEVEN

- CHAPTER TWELVE

- CHAPTER THIRTEEN

- CHAPTER FOURTEEN

- CHAPTER FIFTEEN

- CHAPTER SIXTEEN

- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

- CHAPTER NINETEEN

- CHAPTER TWENTY

- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

- CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

- CHAPTER THIRTY

- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

- CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

- CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

- CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

- CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

- Excerpt from Freaking Off the Grid

- Excerpt from BLOOD FOR INK

- Excerpt from GOING BACK FOR ROMEO

- Acknowledgements

- About the Author