Sing to Me (The Highlands Book 1)

by Ali M. Cross

  “I’m so sorry, Nix. She shouldn’t have done that without your permission. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  “It’s okay, Lindsay. She has my permission. The two of them belong together.” And with me.

  FIONA SLOWLY ROSE TO CONSCIOUSNESS, TRYING TO zone in on the tickling sensation on her face.

  She bolted upright, slapping at her face in a frenzy shouting, “Get off! Get off! Get off!” She shuddered as a wave of nausea hit her, and then she was vomiting, her palms pressing onto sharp rocks poking out from the dirt.

  Her vision swam, and her head felt as if someone had taken a sledge hammer to it. Or an axe. She literally felt split in two, from her head to her feet. What in the world had happened? She raised her knees and braced her elbows against them, so she could hold her head in her hands—it felt too heavy for her neck.

  She tried to think, but it felt like the harder she tried to remember what was going on, the more her brain hurt. There’d been something about Sailor and an eagle…

  She looked around, searching for Sailor. “Hey!” she yelled as she fought her way to her feet. “Hey!” she called with more desperation. “Sailor!” But she hardly expected the horse to come trotting back at the sound of her name. Daisy might have, but Sailor was far too young and high strung. Her stomach heaved and she bent over to let its contents out, but white flared behind her eyes.

  When she woke next, her face was planted in the dirt, and it was dark. Her mind came more awake as she did, though, and she remembered more of what had happened.

  She’d been stupid. And arrogant. She’d taken out the most high-strung horse in the barn, without boots or stirrups, for a joy ride. And she’d crashed the car.

  Worse, she’d lost the car. Because she was pretty darn sure Sailor was worth at least a car. A really expensive one, too. And now she was lost and it was all Fiona’s fault. If anything happened to Sailor, Nix would kill her.

  Fiona rolled away from the vomit beside her and lay on her back, looking up through the canopy of trees to the stars above. That’s right, she mused. They look so close because I’m on the top of a freaking mountain. At least she might not have to worry about Nix killing her—Mother Nature was going to get first crack at it.

  “Well, jingle bells.”

  She patted her sides, looking for pockets, before she remembered she was wearing her PJs and a hoodie. She didn’t have her phone with her—she’d left it charging on the bedside table when she went over to Nix’s last night. She literally had nothing with her.

  “Jingly, jing, jing, jingle,” she mumbled. She started to catalog her various aches and pains, trying to determine her ability to walk her way out of this mess—but she fell asleep before she got very far.

  Jason Pierce, a high school senior, was in the middle of singing a love song to his girlfriend Tristi when Kipper waved Nix over to the bar. She held the old-fashioned wall phone in one hand, the other covering the mouthpiece.

  “It’s Lindsay MacDonald. Says she tried your cell but you didn’t pick up.”

  He pulled the phone from his pocket and saw four calls from an unknown number. “I didn’t even feel it buzz.”

  Kipper held the phone toward him and he took it, freeing her to serve the man down the bar.

  “Hello?” Nix said.

  “Nix?” Lindsay virtually screamed into the phone. “Fiona’s not back! She hasn’t come back!”

  Nix could barely hear her, every sound suddenly dim. He dropped the phone and left the club. If Kipper called after him, he didn’t hear her, either.

  He didn’t remember getting into his truck, or anything about the drive to the ranch. He stopped the truck just short of hitting the front porch of the great house, managing to turn the engine off, before running up to the house. Lindsay was opening the door before he got to it.

  “What?” he asked. He stood in front of Lindsay, his heart begging her to say something different. Something totally mundane so he’d feel stupid for running over here like this.

  Lindsay, calm now in the face of Nix’s anxiety, put her hands on his arms and spoke evenly. “Fiona never came home. Gavin’s gone out to look for her, and Jack’s keeping an eye out, too.”

  “Jack?” Nix managed.

  “Satellite phone. The boys always take them when they’re going in deep woods in case of an emergency.”

  Nix nodded. “This is an emergency.”

  “Yup.” Lindsay started to lead him into the house, but Nix planted his feet.

  “I need to go help her. I’ve gotta do something.”

  Lindsay just kept walking and talking, the screen door closing behind her, but Nix heard her ask, “You know these mountains?”

  He followed her inside. “No.”

  “Then there’s nothing you can do.”

  Unforgiving helplessness flooded his heart and his knees buckled. Lindsay rushed back to him, but he waved her off, steadying himself against the wall. Fiona was lost out there, hurt maybe, maybe dying, and he was stuck here. “I can’t let this happen again.” I can’t just be doing nothing when someone I love is out there—he couldn’t let himself finish that thought.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Lindsay said again.

  Nix straightened and covered his face with his hands. God.

  God.

  He dragged his hands over his face and looked at Lindsay. “Do you need me to stay with you?” He placed his hand on her arm, his voice even now.

  Her eyes were still wide, but she was calm now, too. “No,” she said. “But there’s nothing you can do.”

  “I know.” He squeezed her arm and turned back to the door. “I won’t go far. The barracks or something. I just…need some air, okay?”

  Lindsay didn’t look like she believed him, but she let him go.

  He stood in Sailor’s stall for a while. Then mucked it out—it hadn’t been done that day. He freshened her food and water, then checked on the other horses tucked in for the night. They were restless—probably unused to the barn lights being on all night, or maybe picking up on the tension. Nix rubbed some noses, spending extra time with Daisy, the horse Fiona had ridden the other day. She was a sweet old thing, all gray in her whiskers. He shook his head and chuckled to himself. Fiona had totally set out to get him that day.

  “Good thing we showed her, eh, old gal?” Daisy whickered in response.

  Nix straightened as a thought came to him. He’d been moping around the last hour or two feeling helpless when there was something he could have been doing all along.

  He patted Daisy one last time, then shut off the lights on his way out the staging door.

  He scanned the property, the half moon shedding a pale light on the landscape. Taking a deep breath, he clasped his hands and bowed his head.

  He didn’t know how much more time had passed before he heard the sound of hooves. He was leaning against the pole fence, a prayer dying on his lips, as he watched a horse and rider, followed by another horse come into view. He recognized Sailor immediately.

  Before he realized it, he’d opened the gate and was running down the path toward Gavin. When they met, Gavin handed Nix Sailor’s reins, gave a brief shake of his head, then trotted toward the barn. Nix led Sailor slowly after him, his heart heavy and empty.

  Though she walked slow, and she was caked in sweat, Sailor didn’t seem to be injured. Still, Nix took his time caring for her. Some of it he’d been taught by Jack, some of it just seemed right. Plus, he wasn’t sure he was in a hurry to hear what Gavin had to say.

  The two men worked side by side for some time, washing down the horses with soapy water, brushing them. Then Gavin nodded and led Pumpkin into her stall. Nix lingered over Sailor. He gave her water and when she started gobbling it down, he forced her to slow. It was a long time before she was satiated. He led her to her stall and let her loose inside. But when he closed her door, he just stood there, watching her. Wishing she could tell him where his girl was.

  “I’ll take you out with me a
t first light,” Gavin said to Nix when he finally joined him and Lindsay in the kitchen. Lindsay poured him a cup of hot chocolate and placed it before him. Nix wrapped his hands around it but didn’t drink. “We can’t do anything more tonight—it’s too dark under the tree cover. I saw the direction Sailor was coming from though, so I know where we need to go.” Gavin looked at Nix and added, “She’ll be all right. Fiona’s tougher than you know.”

  Nix thought about the woman who’d come to him in the middle of the night to give him a hug because she’d just found out he’d lost his parents. He closed his eyes and nodded.

  FIONA WOKE TO THE TRILL OF MORNING BIRDS AND weak sunlight warming her face. She’d been asleep, curled in a ball, rocks and sticks poking into her all over. But she’d survived the night, and for that she was grateful. She wasn’t dead yet.

  She stood, giving her legs time to find their strength and her equilibrium time to even out. Her head still pounded, her whole body ached, but she was alive. There was nothing else to do but to start walking.

  The morning was crisp and beautiful, though still quite dark as she moved downward into denser tree growth. Her fingers itched for her phone, if only to find out what time it was, though she guessed it to be around five or six a.m. Her stomach rumbled, but that was to be expected. She hadn’t eaten anything since the night before last and had vomited what little was left inside her sometime in the night. Even if she had food with her though, she wasn’t sure she could eat it.

  She walked slowly and carefully, her eyes scanning constantly for a trail, a marker, or anything even remotely familiar. She had a general idea where she was, and downward was a good direction to go, but she could just as easy end up in a closed campground far, far from home as she could back at the ranch. She had to go south-east, or there was no telling where she’d end up, but without the sun, and this high up in the mountains, it was impossible to tell direction.

  Of course, Jack and Gavin would disagree. No doubt they’d insist on putting her through an orienteering course once she was home, so she’d never lose her way again. Not that she planned to go into the woods ever again.

  Jack was forever dragging her into the woods as a kid, and she’d had to participate in excursions just like the rest of them, but Fiona was never a fan. She’d choose to stay back with the horses, safe in the wide-open fields below the lodge, every time she could. Something about the closeness of the trees, the way they’d sometimes grow together overhead, blocking the sky from view, had always made her feel strapped to the earth when all she wanted to do was soar.

  As she looked around her, she expected to feel those same suffocating feelings—but she didn’t. The leaves under her feet let out a warm, pungent smell as she stepped on them, and for some reason that reminded her of Nix. That smell, that warmth. The sway of the branches above her, the shuffle of leaves, they reminded her of his breathing beneath her ear. Steady, soft. Comforting.

  She shook her head, trying to push away thoughts of Nix. How could the woods remind her of him when he was anything but suffocating?

  She stopped. She’d told herself he was suffocating. His meddling in her business was just the sort of thing she did not want. She didn’t want anyone trying to control her, telling her what to do. And that’s exactly what Nix had done—wasn’t it? She started walking again, her gaze drawn to the canopy of trees above her head. She didn’t feel trapped; not by Nix or by the trees. She felt surprisingly content—as far as she could feel content in her battered condition.

  Despite everything, she wasn’t afraid. For the first time in—forever?—she wasn’t afraid of anything.

  Birdsong drifted down to her—not just the raucous call of the crows that always seemed to be around, but something sweeter. She recognized the tiny voice of a kinglet calling tee-da-leet, tee-da-leet far above her, and the answering tee-tee-tee response. Now that she listened, she could hear sweeter sounds than the ones that had always made her think the woods were so ugly. She saw it all now with new eyes, from the vantage of having been away for so long. Had she seen a place so beautiful since she’d left?

  The scripture her mom often quoted, “There is no fear in love—perfect love casteth out all fear,” came to her mind. She knew that’s what she’d been doing for so long she didn’t even remember why. She’d let fear fill her heart so there wasn’t room for love. But this morning, this glorious morning full of God’s beauty, all she felt was love.

  I have hit my head an awful lot these past weeks, she thought wryly. Maybe it’s rattled my brains. She chuckled to herself, then whistled along with the kinglets who serenaded her. Or knocked some sense into me, more like.

  She felt . . . alive. Free. Music filled her body like it did on the stage, music and glorious scents and a vision of unsurpassed beauty as the trees opened to a view of the valley below, still clinging to the green of autumn grass. Tee-da-leet, tee-da-leet.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed. “Thank you for letting me see this. This beauty. Thank you for letting me feel this.” She didn’t know what to call it because it felt like so many things in one: peace, comfort, love. Home.

  Her body ached and she needed to rest often, but she distracted herself from her pain and thirst by focusing on each step, each sight, every smell, every sound.

  She’d nearly died yesterday because she was so afraid of living. She thought the only kind of life worth having was one on the stage—a fake life. Oh, she loved the stage and the music, but that wasn’t living. That was just a part of it. This, she thought as she rested at the base of a tree and watched a squirrel carrying nuts up to its home, this was living.

  That’s what Nix had been trying to tell her. What Lindsay’d been trying to tell her. You can do stuff in your life, you can be fulfilled and chase your dreams, but you shouldn’t have to sacrifice the real things, the lasting things. Things like home. Like family.

  Like love.

  A song grew inside her, but she didn’t immediately recognize it. For the last ten or more years it had been all opera all the time, but now when she tried to reach for the arias she knew, none of them felt right. She let herself hum randomly until she found herself settling on Nix’s arrangement of Silent Night. With a smile on her face and her heart so full she thought it might burst right open, she gave voice to the song.

  Her voice was tentative at first, but grew in confidence as she sang about that peaceful night when Jesus was born. While her body ached, her throat did not, and with her heart so full, tears filled her eyes.

  This was home. This place where her siblings wanted her, where she was blessed to live and work among God’s great creations. Her Savior had provided this world for her. And there was music everywhere—not like the raucous cries of the city. Here, there was music in the wind through the trees and birds with their harmonies and melodies and playful little tunes. Here, the golden light of the sun filtered down from above, creating a light show that rivaled anything she’d seen on stage. This was home.

  A kinglet, its rosy little head flashing, swooped before her and around the bend. Laughing, Fiona picked up her pace to see if she could follow its flight. She had to scramble down some rocks, but the ground was even beneath her feet when she landed. She cleared her way through the underbrush—and saw Gavin and Nix riding a path just below her vantage point.

  Her heart pounded in her throat to see them. She raised her arms and waved wildly. “Hey!” she called.

  Gavin and Nix both stopped, both turned toward the sound of her calls. “Good morning!” she called to them in a voice as clear as the morning.

  As she watched them pick their way toward her, she knew she couldn’t leave them. Couldn’t leave Nix. She couldn’t deny the feelings that filled her heart. The way she’d felt in Nix’s arms. The way his kiss had made her feel more alive than any song ever had. The way her family had always stayed loyal to her, even when she pushed them away.

  These feelings—they weren’t a handicap, or a trap. They were freedom.

 
Even though he knew he couldn’t have heard her, shouldn’t have been able to hear her, Nix believed he’d heard Fiona singing. When they’d finally found each other, and he saw just how far away she’d been, he knew it couldn’t be possible. Still…he’d heard a voice that sounded like hers singing Silent Night—and he believed. If it wasn’t her song, then it was God, and either truth was fine by him.

  He jumped off Manny’s back, his borrowed ride for the day as Sailor was in no shape to ride, and ran toward Fiona. She was on a little ledge above him, and she hesitated as there didn’t seem to be a clear path down to him. He climbed as far as he could and reached up for her and when she finally filled his arms, he let himself breathe her in, hoping he’d never have to let her go again.

  When he helped her down toward the trail, Gavin was there. Fiona stepped right into his arms, hugging her brother fiercely. “Thank you,” she said against his shoulder. She pulled back and reached a hand for Nix. “Thank you both of you. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find my way home.”

  “You were just about there, kiddo,” Gavin said. “You’d have found it yourself in just another few hundred yards.”

  But Nix knew Fiona didn’t mean what Gavin thought she meant. She wasn’t talking about being lost in the mountains, but being lost in life. And he thought what she was saying, was that she was finally coming home—in every way that mattered most.

  Gavin took the lead, stretching the distance between them. Fiona rode in front of Nix, one arm wrapped around her waist while he held the reins and the pommel with his other hand. He still wasn’t close enough. He needed to feel her warmth. He needed to give her his. He didn’t ever want to let her go.

  After a while, she began to sing—her voice so high and clear, so true and real, it spoke to his heart like it was the sound he was born to hear every day of his life. And he was positive he’d somehow heard her earlier. He knew miracles happened to other people—why not to them?