“TRY PUTTING YOUR fingers here,” Destiny said, shifting Starr’s fingers on the fretboard. “Press firmly enough to hold the strings, but not so tight that you exhaust yourself. You don’t need a death grip.”
Starr moved her hand slightly then relaxed her fingers. “Like this?”
“That’s it. How are your fingers?”
They’d been playing for nearly an hour already. Starr had ignored her offer to help her learn to play guitar for a week. But at six-thirty that morning, her sister had approached her. Destiny had been surprised, but pleased.
“Sore,” Starr admitted.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” She glanced at the clock. “We have to get going or you’ll be late for camp. We’ll practice more tonight. Eventually, you’ll build up calluses but until then you can use ice or soak them in apple cider vinegar.”
Starr laughed. “I’ll start with ice. I don’t want my hands to smell.”
“Fair enough. You ready?”
Starr put down the guitar and nodded. She was already dressed in jeans and a jacket. It would warm up later, but it would be cool first thing in the morning, especially up in the mountains.
“You have sunscreen and insect repellent?” Destiny asked. “They’re giving you lunch.”
“I have everything, and if I don’t, I’ll text you.”
“Good. I’ll have my cell phone with me.”
Destiny grabbed her backpack, and they headed for the car.
Later in the week a bus would take the local kids up the mountain, but for the first couple of days, parents were expected to drive. She had directions, but guessed that she would simply be following a line of cars heading to End Zone for Kids.
“You excited?” she asked as they turned onto Forest Highway.
“A little. I’ll be assigned a buddy to help me find my way around.”
“Plus, everyone is new on the first day.”
“Did you ever go to camp?”
“A couple of times,” Destiny told her. “They were the kind where you stayed in a cabin.”
“Like boarding school.”
“Exactly. Between touring and getting married or divorced, neither Mom nor Dad could take care of me in the summer.”
“Is that when you went to live with your Grandma Nell?”
“Uh-huh. I was ten. Scared about living in the mountains, but happy to be with her. No matter what, she was always there for me.”
“Did you like living with her?”
Destiny thought about the beauty of the Smoky Mountains. Sure, they’d been isolated, but that hadn’t been a bad thing.
“Very much. There’s a rhythm to the seasons. Things to do. Putting up fruits and vegetables in the summer. Getting ready for winter in the fall. The first snowfall was always so beautiful.”
She turned onto Mountain Pass and as she’d expected, found herself in a long line of cars heading up the mountain.
“Was it hard to leave to go to college?” Starr asked.
“It was. I worried I wouldn’t be as smart or educated as everyone else. And I was nervous about being back in the ordinary world. I’d been out of touch for so long. What if I didn’t talk right or know what to wear?” She thought about her first couple of days at college. “And I missed Grandma Nell so much.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“Vanderbilt for two years, then I transferred to the University of Texas.”
“Why?”
“It was hard being in Nashville. There was too much of the industry around.” She knew she didn’t have to say which industry. In her family, there was only the one.
“You got your degree in music?” Starr asked.
“Computer science.”
“What?” Starr stared at her. “Why? That’s like math, only harder.”
“Computers rule, young lady. We have to respect them.”
“Sure, but we don’t have to, like, study them. Oh, wait.” Starr nodded slowly. “You wanted to get away from your parents and what they did for a living. You wanted to be different.”
Or safe, although Destiny didn’t say that. “It seemed like a good plan. Once I figured out my major, transferring made the most sense. I ended up getting an internship at the company where I work now, so everything turned out.”
“What did Grandma Nell think of your major?”
An interesting question. The older woman had in fact reminded Destiny that running from something wasn’t the same as running to something.
“She always supported me,” Destiny said, bending the truth. “I could count on her, no matter what.”
“That’s nice. I wish I had someone like her in my family. Where is she now?”
“She passed a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. Me, too.”
Destiny pushed away the inevitable sadness and pointed to the sign up ahead. “We’re here.” She followed the other cars into a large parking lot.
Registration was quick. Starr was given a color-coded wristband, and then it was time for Destiny to leave.
Starr drew in a breath. “Okay, I’ll see you later. You remember that lady, Felicia, is driving me home, right?”
“I do.” Destiny touched her sister’s arm. “You’re going to do great.”
“I hope so. It sucks being the new girl. I know how to do it, but I never like it. I can’t imagine doing what you do. Not just, like, working with computers and stuff, but always going from place to place. Don’t you ever want to settle somewhere?”
“Eventually, sure.”
Starr looked like she was going to say something else but changed her mind. She shifted her backpack to her other shoulder. “See you later.”
“Have fun.”
Destiny thought about giving her a hug, but before she could reach out, Starr had turned and walked away.
She let her go and returned to her car. Progress had been made, she thought. She would enjoy that and continue to take baby steps.
She drove back to town and parked at home before walking to Brew-haha. She was meeting Kipling for an update before heading out in the helicopter to oversee more tracking. Miles was making good progress. It wasn’t that he needed her along, but she preferred to make random flights to confirm it was all going well.
She crossed the street and walked toward Brew-haha. When she realized she was moving faster and faster, she deliberately slowed. She was not excited about seeing Kipling again. She wasn’t anything. She was going to have a meeting with a colleague. Nothing more.
As she forced herself to keep to a slower pace, she thought about all the women who gave in so easily to sex. She supposed a case could be made that their way was better. If you simply reacted to attraction, then maybe, over time, it had no power. Maybe it was like an itch that once scratched, didn’t return.
Only that hadn’t been her experience with her parents. They went from itch to itch, creating havoc in their respective wakes. Maybe the actual problem was she hadn’t been looking hard enough for her sensible, reliable mate. There were plenty of single men right here in town. Why not check them out?
There were the Mitchell brothers. Aidan and Nick were both attractive. Although from what she’d heard, Nick was an artist at heart. If he really was denying his gift, then there was a disaster looming, and she didn’t want that. Aidan ran an adventure tour company. Not exactly the job description of her ideal calm, staid mate.
There had been talk at the volunteer meeting about a rancher named Zane. He had sounded age appropriate, and a man who made his living off the land was certainly going to understand about being responsible and patient. She should find a way to meet him.
But all plans of casually running into rancher Zane fled the second she walked into Brew-haha and saw Kipling was already at one of the tables. He’d ordered two lattes and had a plate of pastries in front of him.
She hesitated for a second. Her body seemed to go into some kind of cellular happy da
nce. Her breathing hitched, her heart raced and somewhere deep in her belly she felt a distinct kind of twisting. Probably the beginning of stomach flu, she told herself uneasily.
She refused to show weakness and walked toward him.
“Hey,” he said when she took the seat opposite his. “I got you a latte. Hope that’s all right.”
“It is. Thank you.” She clutched the coffee mug in both hands.
“You get Starr off okay? Didn’t she start summer camp today?”
“Uh-huh. I hope she likes it.”
“Yeah, it’s never easy being the new kid.”
“That’s what she said. Did you move around a lot as a kid? Because of the skiing?”
“Sure, but I had my coach and my team. I wasn’t on my own like she is. But she’ll make friends and that will help. Too bad you’re leaving at the end of summer. If you were staying, she’d have friends when school starts.”
“Starr goes to a boarding school. She’ll be going back there.”
Kipling frowned. “She doesn’t live with you full-time?”
“No. Just for the summer. I’m her legal guardian now, but that’s more for handling logistics.”
“Oh. And she’s okay with that? With not having a real home?”
Destiny didn’t like the questions. “She has a home.”
“Where?”
Destiny didn’t have an answer to that. Starr had only spent a few days at Destiny’s place in Austin before they’d left for Fool’s Gold. The apartment wasn’t really big enough for the two of them.
“I guess I haven’t thought that part through,” she said slowly.
“You should talk to her and find out what she thinks is going to happen in the fall. She might not be as excited about going back to boarding school as you think.”
“Why would you say that? You don’t know her.”
“I know kids. I jumped at the chance to join the ski team and loved every second of it, but there were kids who would rather have been home. No one likes being sent away.”
She’d been a kid, too, she thought with faint irritation. For her, being sent away had been the best thing to ever happen to her. But she’d been going to live with a loving grandmother while Starr was going away to school. Those were different destinations.
“She has friends at school,” she said, aware she sounded defensive. Partly because if Starr wasn’t going back, then Destiny didn’t know what that would mean. She loved traveling for her career, but with a fifteen-year-old, moving from place to place every three months wasn’t possible.
She shook her head. “You’re fixing things again. You need to let that go.”
“I can’t help it,” he said with an easy smile. “It’s part of my charm.”
“If you say so.”
He laughed. “Not impressed? I could get you references, if that would help.”
“I can’t begin to imagine what they would say.”
“It’s all good,” he promised. “I’m a fun date. Speaking of which, come with me to The Man Cave opening. It’s going to be a hell of a party.”
“I’m really not the bar type.”
“This isn’t a regular bar. Come on. It’s the opening of my business. How can you not want to be there to see all the magic?”
She tried to figure out why he was so appealing. Other men were as good-looking. Maybe more so. He was plenty smart, but not brilliant. He had characteristics she found mildly annoying, but they didn’t seem to diminish her attraction.
A date. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on one. Did she even remember how?
“I won’t sleep with you,” she told him.
Kipling didn’t bother reacting to the blunt statement. “I don’t remember asking, but thanks for the update. Are you saying that night or ever?”
Ever. She should say ever. Because he wasn’t what she was looking for. She was clear on her goals. Clear and determined.
“Ever,” she said firmly.
He leaned back in his chair. Amusement twinkled in his blue eyes. “Yeah, you are so lying. You want me. Admit it.”
Destiny told herself he was teasing. That all she had to do was laugh with him and everything would be fine. Only she couldn’t. Not really. Because she was attracted to him. More than she wanted to be.
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She felt herself blushing and wished to be miraculously transported somewhere else. Preferably to another hemisphere. When that didn’t happen, she grabbed her backpack, stood and mumbled, “I have to go.”
Kipling was on his feet in a second. “Destiny, no. Don’t. I was teasing.”
She shook her head and bolted.
For whatever reason, Kipling didn’t follow her. Gratitude and fear propelled her to her office. A ridiculous place to try to hide, she thought, even as she closed the door behind her and leaned against it. Like he didn’t know where she worked?
But there was nowhere else to go. She could only hope for a few minutes of solitude. An hour or so to figure out what on earth was wrong with her and how she was going to fix it. Fast.
* * *
BY FIVE THAT AFTERNOON, Destiny had managed to put the Kipling issue out of her mind. The reprieve was probably temporary, but she was willing to go with that. Mostly out of guilt. Starr guilt.
While she wanted to try to forget the man, she couldn’t seem to let go of his words about her sister. That Starr didn’t technically have a home to retreat to. That there was no place she called her own.
Destiny didn’t know how to fix that problem, but she knew how to offer a distraction. In the time-honored tradition handed down by generations, she cooked.
First up was a pie. Grandma Nell had taught her the secrets to a perfect crust. She’d used first-of-the-season blueberries. Now the pie was cooling on a rack on the kitchen table.
She’d bought chicken for frying and ingredients for salad. Because there weren’t many problems that couldn’t be fixed with fried chicken for dinner.
“I’m back,” Starr called.
Destiny walked into the living room. The teen looked happy as she dropped her bag onto the sofa and collapsed next to it. Destiny sat across from her.
“How was it?” she asked, then mentally crossed her fingers. Please let the report be good.
Starr grinned. “Great. I’m really tired, but in a good way, you know? The camp is huge. There are all these classrooms and different areas. I’m with the drama and music kids. There’s some tech classes and lots of sports stuff, too. It’s busy and loud and fun. We had lunch in shifts, which was good because with that many kids, it would be totally impossible.”
She paused to breathe. “There are kids that come in for a couple of weeks. They stay up there. They’re from, like, Los Angeles. The inner city, one of the counselors said. I talked to this girl who had never been to the mountains before. She’d never seen a forest! She said there were, like, eight trees in this tiny park by her house. She’d counted them.”
Starr shook her head. “I’ve never met anyone like that. She was so fun and had an incredible voice. But everything is different for her. Her family doesn’t have any money. I didn’t know it was really like that for some people.”
“I’m glad she’s able to go to camp.”
“Me, too. I met a lot of kids who live in town. Some of them are my age.” She ducked her head for a second. “Felicia’s son is nice. Carter. He has friends he wants to introduce me to. He said we could hang out.”
Destiny had been nodding along with the conversation, but right then she got stuck.
“A boy?” she asked, wondering if the fear and outrage showed in her voice.
Starr stared at her. “Duh, most sons are boys, so yeah. We’re friends. It’s cool. He’s nice. I like him.”
“Like him how?”
Starr rolled her eyes. “What are you worried about? I’m fifteen. It’s okay for me to like a boy. It’s what teenagers do.”
Destiny told herself to stay calm. That th
is could be managed. “I get that,” she said slowly. “But you have to be careful. We both do.”
“Careful? What are you talking about?”
“It’s in our genes. Like having red hair. And an interest in music. You get that from your dad, right?”
“Okay,” Starr said cautiously. “What does that have to do with Carter?”
“Other traits can be inherited. Things like falling in and out of love. You saw what happened with your parents. Do you want that for yourself? These are decisions you need to think about. Because if you don’t think, you might act. Sex is dangerous.”
Starr turned away. “Don’t say that to me. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m fifteen. I know some kids are doing...that, but I’m not. Who do you think I am?”
“I think you’re Jimmy Don’s daughter. Believe me, I’ve wrestled with the same thing. You have to be careful around boys.”
“Is that why you’re not married? You’re being careful?”
“I know what I’m looking for. I simply haven’t found it yet.”
Starr frowned. “You mean you have a list or something?”
“Yes. I do. I want to make a sensible decision about the man I spend my life with.”
“Love isn’t sensible,” Starr told her. “Even I know that.”
“You’re right. Love is words and chemistry. It has little value. Better to make a decision based on reasonable, understandable criteria. That’s lasting.”
She wasn’t sure if Starr would see her point or call her an idiot. What she didn’t expect was for the teen’s eyes to fill with tears.
“Is that what you really think?” Starr demanded, coming to her feet. “There’s really no love? That my mom didn’t love me?”
Destiny wanted to slap herself. She stood. “No! Of course she loved you. I don’t mean the love between parents and a child. I was talking about romantic love. Your mom treasured you.”
“You don’t know anything,” Starr yelled. “She only cared about my dad and her drugs. She didn’t love me. She abandoned me over and over again, and then she died. I know my dad doesn’t care. Obviously. He barely knows who I am, and he sure doesn’t want me. I’m only here because you got stuck with me. I get it, okay? I get it.”
Her voice rose with the last three words.
Hold Me Page 9
