“Bars would be good. A little early right now, though. Are there any museums nearby?”
“Oh, yeah, a ton. Want to look at the list?” She held the paper toward me.
“Nah.” I took her free hand and laced our fingers together. “You choose. Surprise me.”
We lost ourselves that afternoon in as many historic houses, churches and tiny museums as we could manage. Joss relaxed; some of the worry and tension that had been in her eyes for the last week disappeared as we meandered through history and art. She kept a tight grip on my hand, and for once, I didn’t stress over what that might mean. I just enjoyed it.
As the sun set, we found a tavern on Bay Street and sat down at the bar. Joss ordered a glass of white wine, and I got a beer. The ID’s Carrurthers had supplied definitely came in handy.
“I like this city.” Joss sipped and leaned her head on her hand, elbow on the bar. “It’s got character. Reminds me a little of New Orleans, but with just a slight veneer of class. Or something.”
I reached over and brushed a strand of her hair back, tucking it behind her ear. “It’s good to see you enjoy yourself a little. You’ve been uptight.”
“Mmmm.” She shifted to lean into me, resting her back on my chest and tilting her lips toward my ear. To anyone else, it would look like she was nuzzling my neck. But I heard her whisper.
“I don’t want to startle you again, so get ready.”
I knitted my eyebrows together, confused, until I heard her in my head.
It’s me. I’m doing a scan of the bar, seeing if anyone extraordinary is here. So far you’re the only one I’m picking up.
I nodded, just a slight movement of my head. Joss closed her eyes, and for a minute I could only focus on the way her eyelashes stood out against the paleness of her cheeks. I was hyperaware of each part of her body as it touched me: the way her sweater hugged her chest, the warmth of her back on my stomach, the way her hand lay over one of mine. The arousal was intense, and clearly nothing I could hide, since she opened her eyes and smiled at me.
“You’re incorrigible.” She murmured the words, just low enough to turn me on even more.
“What can I say, you’re irresistible.” I bent my head to kiss along her jaw, up to her ear.
“Rafe? Rafe Brooks?”
The voice was familiar, and not in a completely pleasant way. I couldn’t place it right away, and with Joss leaning on me, tangled around me, I was only able to turn my head at first.
“Cara?” Shock was not strong enough a word for how I was feeling. What the hell was she doing here?
“Yes...” She glanced uncertainly at Jocelyn, who was struggling to slide back onto her own stool.
“Um, hi!” I tried to put enthusiasm in my voice while my head spun. Okay, Cara was a classmate from King who had left in the fall of our senior year. We’d been friends, sort of, and we’d toyed with dating before her father tried to kill Tasmyn and I had to erase her whole family’s memories. But to anyone who might be watching us, it would make sense for me to be surprised to see her here. I decided to play that angle and hope everything else fell into place.
“Hi, yourself!” She moved in for a hug, and I forced myself not to take a step backward. I gave her back the obligatory double pat and then turned to Joss.
“Jocelyn, this is Cara Pryce. I knew her in King. Cara, this is my...girlfriend, Joss. Jocelyn Pennell.”
Something flashed in Cara’s eyes for a nanosecond, and then she extended her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” Joss looked up at me, a hint of panic in her eyes, covered by a phony smile. “Rafe, you didn’t tell me you knew anyone in Savannah.”
“Oh, he didn’t know I was here. We lost touch over a year ago.” Cara’s face hardened. “I moved away from town pretty quick. My family, um, relocated to Pennsylvania.”
“Oh.” Joss nodded, but I knew she was hearing the nuances of what wasn’t being said. “So you’re just visiting Georgia?”
“Actually, I live here now. Or nearby anyway, out in the country. I’m just in town for tonight.” She glanced around the bar. “I’m supposed to meet someone, but I don’t see him yet. Maybe I’m early.”
I didn’t want her to hang around any longer than she had to, but it would have looked off if I didn’t invite her to sit with us, at least for a little while.
“Why don’t you have a drink with us?” I pointed to an empty bar stool. “There’s room.”
She hesitated, looking around again. “Well, I guess maybe just for a minute.”
“What’ll you have?” Joss was doing her best to be pleasant, though I could sense how uncomfortable she was.
“Just a soda, please.” She spied my beer and raised an eyebrow. “Did Georgia lower the drinking age?”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes as I ignored her and flagged down the bartender. When I’d ordered her soda, I turned back around.
“So Cara, are you in school down here?”
She shifted her eyes and pressed her mouth tight. “Uh, not exactly. It’s a long story.”
I spread my hands. “Perfect time to catch up.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Well, I don’t know if you realized that we left King because my father had, um, some medical issues.” The bartender slid the glass across to her, and Cara flashed a smile of thanks before she went on.
“Medical issues being code for what the doctors called a mental breakdown. He had to be hospitalized back in Pennsylvania, and it wasn’t easy. My mom fell apart, and everything was a mess.”
My stomach clenched. I had been the one to manipulate Reverend Pryce’s mind just before they left King. I wondered if I had accidentally done something to cause his illness.
“Anyway, one day I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t be the one to keep my mom together and make sure we had food in the house and my dad had his meds...I left. Packed up, hopped a bus and headed south.”
I hoped I didn’t look as surprised as I felt. Cara had been a hard-working student, the proverbial good girl. She was the last person in the world I’d expect to run away from home.
“That must have been hard to do.” Joss’s empathy was genuine. At the same time, I could hear her in my head.
What the hell are we supposed to do now?
I lifted my shoulder in the most subtle shrug I could manage.
“Yeah, well, it worked out. I like where I’m living now. I met someone who really helped me put things into perspective.” She played with the wrapper of her straw and gazed over my shoulder, still looking for whomever she was supposed to meet, I guessed.
“So Rafe, what are you doing here? Long way from King.”
“Ah, Joss and I are just here visiting.” It sounded lame. It was lame.
“Are you in college? Is that where you met?”
Joss grinned and shook her head. “No. I’m already graduated, but Rafe here has been a rolling stone since high school ended. We met in New Orleans.” She took my hand and squeezed it. “It was love at first sight, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“That’s right.” I returned the pressure. “Fate brought me to Joss.”
Cara cocked an eyebrow. “Funny, last time I saw you, I would have sworn...” She didn’t finish her sentence, but I knew where she was going. Cara had had a crush on Michael, and knowing how I felt about Tas, she’d been more than encouraging about my chances for breaking them up.
I decided to tackle that head on. “Oh, you mean Tasmyn? No, we were just friends. She and Michael are at Perriman together, as far as I’ve heard. I haven’t seen them since graduation, but Tas talks to my grandmother sometimes. Apparently they’re thinking about marriage.”
Okay, so I didn’t really know that. It was just a guess. But something in me, some mean, perverse part, wanted to make sure Cara knew she didn’t stand a chance with Michael Sawyer. I didn’t want her messing with Tasmyn’s happily-ever-after.
She held my eyes for a minute before pushing back her so
da and sliding off the stool.
“Well, it was good to see you, Rafe, and catch up. And to meet you, Joss. Enjoy Savannah. I better go find out what happened to—to the guy I’m supposed to see here.”
And with that, she stepped away and through the door.
“Abrupt much?” Joss frowned after her. “Rafe, that was weird.”
I shook my head. “Cara was always a little odd. But I think maybe everything with her father just finally pushed her over the edge.”
“What’s her story?” Joss finished her wine as I paid our tab.
“I’ll tell you over dinner.” I stood and offered her my hand. “Come on, let’s go eat.”
***
OUR TWO DAYS in Savannah passed without anything unusual happening. Joss and I made ourselves as visible as possible, but no one recruited us to join a weird commune. It was downright disappointing, and I said that to Joss on our final morning at the bed and breakfast.
“I mean, here we are, ripe for the picking. I feel like that kid who gets picked last for every team during gym class.” I bit into a raspberry Danish.
“Shh.” Joss glanced around. “It’s not that surprising. First of all, we don’t know that they’re recruiting in Savannah. Hell, we don’t know that they’re bringing in anyone else at all. Second, because there’s two of us, maybe we don’t fit their profile.”
“That’s possible.” I watched her take a sip of coffee. “I was just hoping it would be easy. You know, we get picked up here, figure out what’s going on, we’re back home.” I ran a finger down her bare arm. “But at least the time here wasn’t a total waste. Bringing those handcuffs was a brilliant move.”
Joss smiled. “Thank you. I thought so.”
We finished breakfast, packed up and loaded the car. We had the location of the commune on an encrypted map on Joss’s phone, but we couldn’t just drive there; it had to look like an accident.
I headed the Impala out of town, following the roads west. We stayed on the main highway for half an hour and then took an exit south into a barren, marshy land.
“Why on earth would anyone want to live out here? I mean, I guess I can see starting a commune on the beach in California. Or in the woods in Maine. Even the mountains in Colorado. But this is just...empty.”
I nodded. “I’d have to agree. How much further do we have to get lost before we can start winding around in the right direction?”
“About another ten miles, then you can turn us west again.” She fidgeted in her seat.
“Don’t be nervous, baby.” I spoke without thinking, and Joss gaped at me.
“Baby? Really?”
I shrugged. “Sorry, I guess I’m still in character.” I’d laid on the endearments a little heavy while we were in Savannah, sometimes to just to make Jocelyn giggle. But this one came out on its own. I could feel her jitters, and I just wanted her to calm down.
“I’m not nervous, exactly. Just hyped, I think. Once we get there and really start the mission, I’ll settle. It’s the stop and go that’s driving me nuts.”
The landscape stayed the same over the next ten miles, and then the ten miles after we started west again. There were clumps of trees dotting the landscape of the marsh, but no sign of life as far as I could see.
“Wouldn’t it be ironic if we really were lost?” I smirked, looking over at Joss.
“Rafe! Watch out!” She screamed the words at me, and in response I cut the wheel sharply to the right, narrowly avoiding the bushy-tailed fox that had darted out of the trees and run across the road.
I had been cruising along this empty back road at close to eighty, and when I hit the brakes, we spun and then hit the shoulder of the road. Gravel sprayed as the Impala careened over the tall grasses into a ditch hidden at the edge of the field, coming to an abrupt stop when the front of the car met the soft earth.
I reached out to Joss, gripping her arm. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, swallowing hard. “No. Thank God for updated seatbelts in here, though, huh? Oh, my God.” She dropped her head into her hand, and I saw she was trembling.
I rubbed the back of her neck. “Sit tight for a minute. Let me see how bad the damage is.”
I unbuckled my seatbelt and pushed open the door. It was stuck on the grass, and I had to give it a good shove before I eased my way out.
“Shit.” I kicked the dented fender.
“How bad is it?” Joss rolled down her window and leveraged herself up to see.
“I can’t really tell, but I think the tire is stuck. Maybe some other damage underneath, but I won’t be able to see until I can get it moved.”
“Damn. What are we going to do?”
I slogged through the marsh back to the driver’s side and leaned in. “Are you getting a signal on your phone? We can call the road service and see about getting a tow. Papers are in the glove compartment.” I smacked my hand on the roof of the car. “I can’t believe this. We’ve got to be close.”
“I’ll try to call them, but I’m not sure my phone is going to get reception.” She dug around the glove box, searching, and then jerked her head up as we both heard the sound of a truck heading our way.
I looked back, but we were so far below the road level that I couldn’t see anything. It drew closer before the engine cut.
“Keep your phone in your hand,” I told Joss. “We’re out in the middle of fucking nowhere. If anything looks off to you, call 911. I’ll try to work on his mind, but sometimes shit can happen fast.”
She nodded at me, her eyes wide and her lips pinched.
“Hey, there. You folks all right?” The strong twang came from behind me, and I saw Jocelyn’s gaze travel over my shoulder.
I turned around to see a guy who was maybe a little older than me standing on the edge of the road. His boots were at my eye level until he squatted to see me better.
“Yeah, we are. Can’t say the same for the car.”
“What happened?” His tone was friendly enough, but I stayed cautious.
“Fox ran out in the middle of the road. I swerved to miss it, ended up here.”
“Yeah, not much traffic out here. Critters used to having the run of the place. Where’re you headed?”
This was where the rehearsed part of our story came in. “We just left Savannah, and my girlfriend—” I pointed into the car—“wanted to go see the area that movie Gone With The Wind was based on. I guess there’s a house from that inspired it. But we didn’t want to take the highway. We thought it would be more fun to go the back roads, take the scenic route.” I grimaced as I said it, letting this dude know that is wasn’t my idea to be on these empty roads. “I think we took a wrong turn. We were trying to figure out where we are when the fox ran out.”
His eyes never leaving mine, the good old boy whipped off his baseball cap, scrubbed the back of his neck and replaced the hat. “Y’all are way off course, that’s for sure. Most people take the 75 to Atlanta area.”
“Most people are smarter than us.” I nodded gravely, letting him know I understood.
“Well, let’s see if we can get you out of this mess. I got a hitch and tow line on the back of my truck. Should be able to lift you out.” He glanced over my shoulder. “You might want to help your girl there get out first. Better if she’s not inside while we’re trying to do it.”
“Rafe, I can’t get my door open.” Joss pushed the handle, but it didn’t budge. “I guess I can try to climb out through the window.”
“No, crawl over here and come out my door. C’mon, I’ll give you a hand.” The car was slightly tilted so that the passenger seat was lower than the driver’s side. She maneuvered herself across the center console, dropping her backside into my seat. I reached for her waist and lifted her out.
“Thanks, baby.” She winked at me, and I smacked her ass as she moved past me to climb the embankment. She hesitated a second when she got a look at our rescuer, but I didn’t think he noticed.
“Hi, I’m
Jocelyn. Thanks for stopping to help.”
He rubbed one hand down the front of his jeans and took hers. “Billy Morgan. No problem, I’m happy to do whatever I can.”
I joined them on the shoulder. Billy bent to attach the tow line to the back of his truck, and Joss shot me a bright smile.
Rafe, he’s one of them. One of the pictures Cathryn showed us. From the commune.
I frowned and cocked my head.
Yes, I’m sure. I have an amazing memory for faces. Trust me.
I strolled over, acting as casual as I could, and stood next to the truck. “So, Billy, you live around here? We haven’t seen any houses or anything for miles.”
He grinned up at me. “Not near the main road, you won’t. Most people ‘round here live on farms or way out in the middle of the sticks. Yeah, I live up the road a piece.”
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t ask him for more information, or I’d sound like a stalker. And what if he had abilities? Keeping my blocks up was a matter of course now, but I still took a minute to make sure they were in place.
I’m not picking up anything extraordinary about him. I think he’s just normal.
I nodded just enough that Joss knew I’d heard her, but I still wasn’t sure what to do next.
Billy backed the truck to the edge of the road, and I climbed down to hook the tow line to the back of the Impala.
“You’ll probably need to go around the front to give her a hand.” He got in the truck and started it up.
It took almost twenty minutes and a lot of pushing, pulling and adjusting, but we finally hauled the car back on to the road. I examined the front end.
“Looks like you got a fair amount of damage there.” Billy, master of the obvious, shook his head as he looked over my shoulder. “Probably won’t be able to drive it.”
I dropped a fist on the hood. “Shit. I was afraid of that. So is there a garage around here or anything? And is there any way you could tow me there?”
Billy shook his head. “Sorry, there’s nothing around I know of. I haven’t been here that long, but as far as I can think, nearest place has got to be fifty miles. And no way I can pull you that far.”
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