“Jeez, Mia, I just don’t want to see you get hurt. Is that so bad?”
“I’m not going to get hurt and I can look after myself.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “Be stupid if that’s what you want.”
And to show her how little he cared, he ignored her the minute they got to the river, ambling off toward Bill Will, Neal Barrows and David Simpson, who were already boasting about being seniors, even though their junior year had just ended. A bunch of kids had started a fire in the picnic-area fire pit. Coolers lay scattered around, filled with soda pop and hot dogs. Some, of course, held contraband—beer. Boom boxes were blasting, kids stood or sat in clumps, laughing and eating chips. A few were at the riverbank, dangling their feet in the water. And there, at the edge of the crowd, sat Adrian Malk, nursing a beer. He’d attracted a couple of other guys who were trying to be just as cool, and they sat on fallen log benches, looking down on their more innocent counterparts, who were happy dancing or tossing a football.
Tammy Granger and Jenny Hook, the two loosest girls in school, were with them, flipping their hair and flirting. Mia had no intention of lowering herself to their level, so she joined Bailey Sterling at one of the coolers and helped herself to a Diet Pepsi.
“Those two,” Bailey said, following Mia’s gaze, “I don’t think there’s a single guy at school they haven’t done it with.”
Did one of them want to do it with Adrian? Mia wasn’t ready to give up her virginity, but she found she was jealous all the same. The idea of Adrian kissing some other girl, telling her she was cute, made her frown. Adrian didn’t seem all that interested in them, though. He just sat there wearing a superior smirk. Then he saw her and the smirk turned into a smile. He nodded, acknowledging her presence.
Feeling both self-conscious and elated, she gave him a brief smile and then focused her attention on her can of pop.
“Oh, my gosh,” said Bailey. “Is Adrian checking you out?” Then, without waiting for an answer, she came to her own conclusion. “He is! You should go talk to him. Don’t let the slut sisters get him.”
Mia saw him at school all the time and at Grandma Justine’s, but she suddenly felt shy, incapable of moving. “Maybe later,” she said, digging into another cooler and pulling out a package of hot dogs. “I’m starving.”
They joined some other kids at the fire, and Mia tried to concentrate on eating her hot dog and visiting with her friends, but it was hard to concentrate when she knew Adrian was watching her. And Colin was ignoring her.
The night danced on, bringing dusk and then darkness. More contraband appeared, and the scent of marijuana joined the smell of the wood fire. The revelers got noisier and the music got turned up. This wasn’t really Mia’s thing. Adrian was still at the edge of the party and she couldn’t bring herself to make the first move. So what was the sense in staying any longer?
She looked around to see where Colin was, but couldn’t spot him in the growing crowd of kids. Well, she didn’t need to wait for him to give her a ride. She could walk home. Icicle Falls was the safest place on the planet.
She’d almost gotten to the walkway leading out of the park when someone grabbed her arm. “Where are you off to?”
Adrian. Her mouth felt dry. “I’m going home.”
“Don’t go. The party’s just starting,” he said. “Come on.” And before she knew it, he was leading her away from the other kids, down a path and over a bridge that led to Bluebird Island, a nature preserve with a cozy spot complete with a carved wooden bench where nature lovers could enjoy the peace and quiet. During the day it was a restful getaway. Tonight it was a different kind of getaway.
Her heart began to beat faster. This was it. She finally had Adrian all to herself and he’d picked such a romantic place to kiss her.
He sat on the bench and pulled her down beside him. This was what she wanted, right? To be alone with the handsome Adrian Malk? Except suddenly she was nervous. She’d hadn’t really dated. Most of the kids went out in packs until two broke off here or there to become a couple. She hadn’t done that, and now here she was, alone with a boy. What if she wasn’t a good enough kisser?
And what was that she heard? It sounded like snickering somewhere off in the bushes.
“Are you scared?”
“No,” she lied.
“Well, you don’t need to be. I know what to do.”
And he didn’t waste any time waiting to show her. Before she could say anything he was kissing her, and his hand was inside her top, yanking her bra down over one breast. This wasn’t the romantic kiss she’d been dreaming of. It was raw and savage. And scary.
She pulled back. “Adrian, don’t.”
“Come on,” he said. “You’ve been wanting this ever since I got here.” He pushed her down on the bench, holding both her arms above her head, and leered at her.
She tried to squirm away. If she could get her hands free, she’d punch him. “Let me go!”
“Don’t fight it. You’re gonna love this. I promise,” he said, and unsnapped her jeans.
That was when she screamed.
It brought people running, but not anyone she wanted to see. Here were his two buddies.
“Hold her down,” Adrian commanded.
No! “Colin!”
Adrian’s face was in front of hers and now he wasn’t smiling. “Scream again and I’ll hit you, bitch. And you’d better not tell anyone about this.”
Colin had been right. Adrian Malk was no one she wanted to be with. She should have listened to him. Where was he when she needed him? Humiliation and terror gripped her, and tears streamed down her face as she tried to free herself. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her, not in Icicle Falls.
And then she heard it, a thrashing in the underbrush, and Colin calling her name.
“I’m here!” she cried.
He burst onto the scene like some sort of superhero. A superhero who was at least six inches shorter than Adrian. And there was only one of him.
He seemed oblivious to all that. “Let her go.”
“Who’s gonna make me?” Adrian retorted, tightening his hold on Mia.
His two friends advanced on Colin. Oh, they were both in trouble now. Mia’s tears came in a torrent. Sure enough, the two boys began pummeling him. She struggled to get free of Adrian so she could help Colin. He was fighting back but not successfully. She cried out and struggled even harder as he doubled over from a punch to the stomach.
Now there was more noise in the bushes. “Col!” somebody called. “Did you find her?”
“Let’s get out of here,” Adrian said to his friends. Then to Mia. “You tell anybody about this and you’re dead. So’s he.”
He ran off, melting into the darkness along with his pals, leaving Mia sobbing on the bench, hurrying to pull her pants back up and adjust her torn top.
Colin staggered over and put his arms around her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and wiped her runny nose. “You saved me.” She couldn’t even say those three simple words without crying again.
“Saved you? I got the crap beaten out of me.”
“If you hadn’t come...” She couldn’t finish the sentence. All she could do was hang on to him and cry.
“I’m here now,” he said, and she felt the feather touch of his lips on her hair.
Now Bill Will, Neal and David arrived on the scene. “Are you guys okay?” Neal asked.
Mia clutched at her torn top and buried her face in Colin’s shoulder. She wanted to curl into a ball and roll away, become invisible.
“Yeah,” Colin said. “But when I find Adrian Malk, I’m gonna kill him.”
“We need to go to the cops,” David said.
“No!” No way was Mia going to tell anyone what had happened to her.
“Mia, you can’t let him get away with this,” Colin said sternly.
She shook her head violently.
“Okay, then. We’ll tell Aunt Beth. She’ll know what to do.”
She especially didn’t want to tell Aunt Beth. The idea of telling her was even more humiliating than telling the police.
“Colin’s right. You can’t let him get away with that shit,” said Neal. “He’ll turn around and do it to someone else. And she might not be so lucky.”
“Come on.” Colin stood and held out his hand to her. “I’ll take you home.”
She tried to stand, but her legs were rubbery.
He put an arm around her and helped her up. “Come on, Mia. It’s okay. I’m with you.”
“We’ll go, too,” said Bill Will. “In case those guys come back.”
Colin nodded, and they left the river, taking a path that would skirt the party scene and save Mia any embarrassment. “Don’t be telling anybody about this,” Colin warned them.
“What kind of shits do you think we are?” David demanded. “Don’t worry, Mia. We won’t tell anyone.”
But Colin did tell Aunt Beth, who told Grandma Justine, who called the police. Adrian Malk was taken away and logged into a juvenile detention center, and Mia lived in terror that he and his henchmen would somehow escape and kill both her and Colin. But his crime wasn’t treated lightly. He was soon bound over to Superior Court and tried as an adult for what he’d done. Having to recount everything that had happened to the prosecutor was mortifying and brought back the whole experience. The court appearances were scary and humiliating, but she got through them. Then it was all over and, as quickly as he’d crashed into their lives, Adrian Malk was gone, sent to prison. He was the last foster kid Grandma Justine ever took in.
And almost the last man Mia wasted time on.
* * *
“What else does it say?” Colin prompted.
Mia shook off the awful memories and gave their clue her full attention.
“‘Look and you’ll see where you need to go on the other side,’” she read.
“Seriously? And where at the river?”
“Let’s start with the park,” she suggested, and reminded herself that the river held more good memories than bad. She had enjoyed plenty of picnics down there with the Wrights. Colin’s grandpa had taken her and Colin fishing on this river, and they’d spent plenty of time fishing on their own, too. They’d skipped rocks and when the water was low, jumped from boulder to boulder, crossing to the other side to explore winding hiking trails.
Once at the riverbank, Colin didn’t turn toward the area where all the kids had partied. Instead, he went farther downstream to where they used to go fishing. The sun was doing its magic act on the water, making it sparkle as if it was covered with fairy dust.
He sat down on the bank and took in the view of evergreens and ferns and wildflowers crowding the opposite bank. “I remember fishing here with Gramps.”
“We had a great childhood,” Mia said, sitting down next to him.
“Yeah, we did,” he agreed.
She looked at their latest clue again.
“I wish Gram would just get to it,” he said, sounding disgusted.
“Maybe she wants us to think about our lives.”
“I don’t want to think about my life,” he muttered.
There were parts she didn’t want to remember, either, but these clues made it impossible to ignore the past. At least for her. “So, how many people have you wasted time on since...” Here she stumbled. When he tallied the numbers, did he include her? “Since I saw you last,” she amended.
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“Everybody wastes time on the wrong person at some point. Look at my dad. He’s proof of that.”
“Thanks for not using me as an example,” she said, and gave him a shoulder bump.
He picked up a rock and threw it in the river.
She sat for a moment, watching him. Then she couldn’t resist asking, “Do you think you’ve got this relationship thing figured out?”
His only answer was a shrug. If all he could do was shrug, maybe he still wasn’t with the right person. And if Lorelei wasn’t the right person... Oh, no. You’re going someplace you shouldn’t go. But she kind of wanted to go there, anyway.
Why was it so hard to sort out your love life? The river had no answer.
But as she stared across it, she saw the answer to this latest riddle. “That’s it!”
December 26, 2002
Dear Emmaline,
Thank you for the lovely lavender soap. I will enjoy that so much! I was glad to hear that the gingerbread house we had shipped to you made it in one piece. Cass Wilkes is such a lovely young woman and I enjoy giving her business whenever I can. Of course, that’s no sacrifice, considering how much we all enjoy her gingerbread creations. She now ships those houses all over the world! I ordered her largest one this year, but it still didn’t last long, not with Colin and Mia nibbling away at it like mice. My Christmas cookies disappeared in a blink, too. Dylan devours the spritz, and Mark loves the gumdrop cookies. As for Colin, he never met a cookie he didn’t like.
Bethie and Mia are out today enjoying the after-Christmas sales in town, but I decided I’d rather stay home and relax with the new Vanessa Valentine novel Colin gave me, which I’m going to do as soon as I finish this letter. Christmas wore me out.
In fact, this year has worn me out. Between the horrible experience with our last foster child and our disappointing harvest, I’m ready to wipe the slate clean and start new. And to write a little less on that slate! Honestly, Emmaline, for the first time in my life, I’m actually starting to feel the years. I look in the mirror and see the gray hair and wrinkles and ask myself, who is that old woman?
Of course, by today’s standards seventy-two isn’t that old, and my friend Sarah White—you remember Sarah; she owns the Sleeping Lady Salon—keeps trying to talk me into coloring my hair. Maybe I will.
Well, dear, that’s all for now. I hope you and Joey have a happy New Year.
Love,
Justine
Chapter Eight
Colin looked across the river, where Mia was pointing, and all he saw was a riverbank packed with trees. What was she seeing that he wasn’t? “What is it?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“Remember what?”
She shook her head. “The trail to the Indian petroglyphs. Part of it runs alongside the river. Remember Uncle Mark taking us up there and how cool we thought they were and how we tried to draw them on rocks around the orchard? I’ll bet Grandma Justine sent him there with our next clue.”
So far they’d found clues hanging from trees and inside hamburger buns. Why not in the crevice of those boulders with the petroglyphs? “You might be right,” he said and started down the bank.
“We could drive down the highway to the bridge, come at them that way,” she suggested.
“Where’s the fun in that? Anyway, it’ll take an extra twenty minutes. Look how low that spot in the river is. We can get across it in under five.”
“Okay,” she said, and kicked off her sandals.
Colin led the way, jumping from rock to rock. This was like being a kid again. So fun, so freeing, so...slippery. One minute he was flying along like a mountain goat, the next he was knee-deep in the river. And his shoe was floating off down the river. And Mia was doubled over laughing.
“Very funny,” he said, and waded off to get it, slipping on river rocks as he went. The shoe raced on ahead like a small canoe shooting rapids. He finally plunged in after it and caught the thing. Of course, now he was completely drenched. Oh, yeah, he was having fun now.
They made it to the other side, her perfectly dry, him drip
ping wet with his jeans stiff and his pride bruised. “If you say we should’ve driven over the bridge, I’m gonna throw you in the water,” he warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, and managed to keep a straight face for all of two seconds before she started giggling.
Then he had to smile. She laughed. He did, too. “I think I’ve lost my edge,” he said, and sat down to put on his runaway shoe.
“You’re going to squish all the way up the trail,” she said, giggling again.
He did.
It took them about forty minutes to get to the rock outcropping where the petroglyphs were. It was a narrow trail, a shelf high above the river. A sign warned hikers to watch their step in case they fell into the river and got swept away.
“There they are,” Mia said.
Walking up to their long-ago discovery, Colin could remember how seeing that primitive artwork had stirred a hardly recognizable yearning deep in his young-boy soul to create something equally lasting, to make his own mark on the world. So far he hadn’t made any mark at all. “I’m always surprised that these are still here,” Mia said.
He nodded agreement. How many hundreds of years had passed since someone made these stick-figure selfies?
“I think I see an envelope,” she said, peering into a tiny crevice.
He could see it, too, encased in a zippered plastic food storage bag and wedged in there. He reached in and pulled it out, disturbing a small lizard in the process.
The thing darted out, and Mia gave a yelp and jumped, nearly losing her footing.
Colin caught her and pulled her to him, leaning back against the rock to secure their balance. Mia in his arms again. It felt so right. So did the way she was looking up at him. Oh, man. Did temptation get any more appealing than this? Every nerve in his body was suddenly on high alert, and his blood was flowing south.
His cell phone rang. It wasn’t hard to guess who was calling.
“You’d better answer that,” Mia said, stepping away.
Yeah, he’d better. He’d better get his head on straight, too. He and Mia were history.
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