Bonded (The Raegan Mason Trilogy)

by Cheryl Courtney

  I ate my breakfast in deep thought. I would have to wait until Aunt Sarah fell asleep and then slip out again just like the past months. This time I would walk to the Rock with my swimsuit under my clothes and the anticipation for the mysterious music. This time, I would not be afraid. How could something so beautiful be dangerous?

  Aunt Sarah distracted my thoughts by asking, “What do you want to do today? I’ve waited for over six months do be able to go somewhere with you and just be together. Anywhere special you want to go?”

  I felt ashamed about dragging Aunt Sarah through this ordeal. I could not help it or control the headaches, but I still felt responsible for imprisoning Aunt Sarah with me and my pain. I forced a grin and said, “Anywhere you want to go is fine with me. We both need to get out of the house and have some fun.” I really only wanted to go to the beach again, but I didn’t think Aunt Sarah would be up for sunbathing.

  We decided on shopping. My wardrobe was in dire need of a makeover. I hadn’t really needed any new clothes since the accident and the headaches. I had been able to finish my last semester of high school at home. It helped that I took all the advanced classes and loaded myself down with extra classes during the previous 3 years. I did miss graduation though. I couldn’t bear the lights of the stadium or the noise. I didn’t apply to colleges like most seniors. I was either too sad or in too much pain. I lost my parents in November and mourned myself into excruciating pain over the next few months. College was not on top of my list of priorities. Now it seemed like I had time to think about those decisions.

  Our local mall wasn’t too bad. It was a multi-level mall with plenty of stores to choose from. I needed to get some new clothes, and I didn’t really care where we shopped. Aunt Sarah was always the shopper. She could find sales like a blood hound. We spent most of the day trying on outfits and shoes. It seemed like Aunt Sarah would ask me how I was feeling every ten minutes. And each time, I could actually smile and tell her I was great.

  We ate lunch at a restaurant on the bay side of the island. It wasn’t so hot that we couldn’t sit outside. Food tasted so good to me. I could taste all the flavors mixed together. You would think I’d never eaten food. Aunt Sarah laughed as I shoved my lunch into my mouth. “Slow down honey. I don’t believe anyone will take your plate away soon.”

  “Sowwy,” I apologized with my mouth full, “everything tastes so good.”

  “Well you haven’t actually been eating very much for a while. I suppose everything does taste good compared to pills and a bland diet.” Aunt Sarah pointed out the fact that everything was considered a trigger for my headaches, including foods. I had been living on toast, oatmeal and soup.

  I had strawberry cheesecake for dessert to finish off the wonderful lunch. After eating so much I wasn’t sure I was up for more shopping so we decided to go to the Aquarium.

  The Aquarium opened in the spring. You would think living on an island, you would get tired of seeing the marine life, but for me it was always a new and exciting discovery waiting to be made. To think that creatures of all sizes and shapes living together in the ocean makes me feel so small and insignificant. Something as beautiful and dangerous as a jelly fish or something as large and graceful as a whale, there’s room for everything. What creatures have we not discovered? What does the ocean hold in her depths that we cannot reach? Just thinking of that reminded me of the music I heard last night. Could one of these beautiful creatures make that music?

  We walked toward the dolphin show. The dolphins jumped through hoops, tossed balls to each other and splashed the audience. Aunt Sarah laughed each time they waved their fins and splashed some more. We weren’t soaking wet, but it was very refreshing in the heat of the day. During the fun of getting showered with salt water, I began to hear a faint humming. It seemed very familiar and I searched the area for anything that would be making that sound. It was a faint sound, but I knew it was the same music sounds I heard last night. I scanned the group of people around me. There wasn’t anyone looking in my direction, no one was playing an instrument or a radio. I felt an intense desire to find the source.

  We got up to leave the seats and I kept searching the crowds. The music they played for the dolphin show was definitely louder and faster paced than what I was hearing. It seemed far away but at the same time it felt personal and alluring. We walked to the indoor aquarium where the fish and other small sea creatures were housed. The music seemed to follow me. I kept turning around looking for the source, but only found faces of other people admiring the ocean life. It didn’t get louder or closer but stayed at the same level as we walked through the indoor aquarium.

  We left that building and went to the deep sea creature house. It was dark. Many of these creatures were found at the deepest parts of the ocean. Light wasn’t necessary for them. Black lights were used to illuminate their bodies. It was beautiful to see the glowing colors highlighted by the black lights. People bumped and shuffled through the rope lined tour. I could hear the music getting closer and my heart beat increased. A current of electricity streamed over my skin as someone brushed by me. Their skin was damp and cool leaving a residue of moisture on my arm. I reached out to find the person but only grasped air. The music trailed away and then ended abruptly as the door to the building opened and closed. Whoever it was left the building.

  Aunt Sarah and I finished our tour of the Aquarium and headed home for dinner. I helped her wash the vegetables and put some chicken in the oven to bake. We enjoyed a quiet evening discussing my miraculous recovery. She told me my parents had left an inheritance; one I had no idea about growing up. Evidently, my parents were heavily invested in various stocks and bonds on top of their life insurance. A trust fund had been established in my name by my mother’s parents when I was just a baby. They died before I met them. No one ever talked about what happened to them, only that they were gone and left behind some money for my mom and me. I never asked since Mom never talked much about it. I figured it was a painful subject.

  Aunt Sarah was the only relative I had. After she and my father lost their parents, she ended up spending a large part of her life caring for him and making sure he was safe. She was almost ten years older than my father. I never met my grandparents on either side. Supposedly, my dad and Aunt Sarah’s father was a mysterious man and went away on many business trips to different countries. On one of those business trips to Columbia, when my father was a teenager, he was murdered. The drug cartel was blamed. Aunt Sarah and my father were taken care of financially, but he grew up without a father. Their mother died a few months later. I always heard it was a broken heart. Aunt Sarah had found her in her bed. She wasn’t breathing and by the time the ambulance go there, she was already gone.

  It seems history has a way of repeating itself. Here I was without my parents, their lives taken by a tragic accident. The worst part was, I didn’t have closure. Their bodies were never recovered, and for months I dreamt of them returning home after being lost at sea, having amnesia, held captive by some stranger. All of my dreams left me anxious and confused. Everyone told me time heals all wounds. Time was dreadfully painful.

  Aunt Sarah brought up college. She told me that wherever I wanted to go, she would pack up and go with me. I didn’t really want that for her, but I was all she had left. She had lost her brother and her only family, and she wasn’t going to let me out of her sight. Sure she had tons of friends. Aunt Sarah was the type of lady that never met a stranger. Her smile was infectious. Even now with the bitter topic of my parents’ deaths and left behind financial securities, her smile bore straight through me. She was eager for me to being life again. I smiled back at her and told her, “I’ve got time to think about it; maybe in the spring. It’s too late for fall registration anyway.” I tried to stifle a yawn. The day had been taxing on my energy. Aunt Sarah raised an eyebrow then looked away chagrined. “I’ve pushed you too hard today, haven’t I sweetie?”

  “Not at all, I had a great time, but yes, I’m feeling a
bit tired right now. Will you excuse me?” I stood up from the table and took my dishes to the sink. I felt guilty for not helping her clean up, but my body was craving sleep. I didn’t want to be exhausted when I went out later this evening back to the Rock. I wanted to be fully alert to try and solve the source of the mysterious music I heard.

  CHAPTER 4 - KYLER

  I woke up—and the sun was shining in through my bedroom window. Just great. I’d slept all night. I stretched out my arms and legs and stared up at the ceiling. My stomach was a little queasy. It must have been all of the food I ate yesterday. What do I do now? Had my moment passed and would I ever figure out where that music was coming from? Frustrated, I kicked off all of the blankets and got up. If I couldn’t go last night, maybe I could discover something this morning.

  I needed to get some sun anyway. It had been a long time since my pale skin worshiped the sun god. It was already the end of summer and I definitely needed some color.

  Aunt Sarah wasn’t into sun bathing these days, so I opted for the next best thing…Julie. Julie was my best friend. She had visited me off and on through my six month ordeal and she had been with me through almost everything since I was six. I picked up the phone and called her. I told her I was feeling better now and was ready to go out and get some rays. She was bubbling with excitement on the other end, “There’s sooo much to tell you!” She gushed with gossip over the phone. I could just see her hands enunciating her emotions through the phone.

  Julie knew everyone and everything. She was the local gossip guru. She pulled up to my house in her bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle, hopped out and ran to the house. As soon as I opened the door, she flung her arms around my neck. “I have missed being around you so much! You missed prom and graduation, not to mention all the fun of Senior Skip Day. You’ll never guess who Valedictorian was.”

  I could care less. It was supposed to be me last time I checked, but with the accident and my “illness”, I’m sure someone else took up the lead. I threw around some of the few obvious guesses and each time I was met with the smug faced “uh-uh” or “nope”.

  “Just tell me.” I insisted as I grew tired of the game. I was loading my beach bag with the essentials: towels, suntan lotion and snacks.

  “Kyler Stone” she said loudly as if saying that name should demand a standing ovation.

  “Who’s that?” I asked as I grabbed my sunglasses and headed out the door.

  “What?” she stopped along the sidewalk. “You’re kidding me, right? He’s only the hottest, most beautiful creature to every walk the face of the planet! He came to school in November around…” she trailed off mid sentence as she realized the implications of that time frame. “Oh Raegan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…I just…” The air left her and she dropped her eyes to the floor.

  I walked back to her. “It’s okay, Julie. A lot has happened. I am okay now. That’s what’s important. I do miss them a lot and know I’ll never forget them, or what happened. I need to move on with my life now and this is my first step. Now, are you with me? Are we going to toast this white skin off me or what?” I was waiting beside her on the sidewalk for her reply.

  She looked up at me for a moment to make sure she wasn’t hearing false excitement in my voice or my reactions. When she was satisfied that I wasn’t falling apart on her, she looped her arm through mine and we jumped into her Bug.

  Julie is a crazy driver. She talked non-stop filling me in on the “who’s dating who” scene, the “who’s going where for college” low down and of course, “who isn’t going anywhere” spill. Julie was heading to California to UCLA. She wanted to major in Cultural Studies. She had a few more weeks before she flew out. She promised to spend as much time with me to make sure I caught up to speed on all I missed.

  We got to the beach and set up our chairs. It was still a little breezy from the morning sea mist but it wouldn’t take long for the sun to burn that away. The clouds were thinning and the blue sky was beautiful to see.

  Some of our friends were playing beach volleyball at the court a little distance from us. There were some vacationers mixed in with them as well. A few people came up and said their “hellos” then went on about their business. Most were sincere; others followed with awkward silence. When the novelty of my presence wore off a bit, Julie and I oiled up before we fried ourselves to a crisp.

  Julie was of a lighter complexion than me, but she still worshiped the sun. She always burned, sometimes blistered, but then it stayed a beautiful golden tan for a few months. She lay on her stomach first, reading the latest gossip magazine.

  My light complexion always burns, but after a day or two, the tan skin would continue to darken the more I was in the sun. Usually my tans would last me till Christmas. I wanted to stare into the blue sky first. I’d missed summer completely and soon it would be too cool to lie out like this.

  I watched the gulls floating in the breeze for a while, and then closed my eyes behind the sunglasses to listen to the waves rolling in and out. It was like the earth was breathing, in and out. So relaxing and warm. That’s when I heard it.

  The same music, only a little different, caused me to sit up abruptly. My first reaction was to look toward the Rock over a mile away from where we lay. Nothing but people walking along the beach, kids building sand castles, people playing volleyball. Julie looked over at me. “What’s wrong?” she wrinkled her forehead a bit dropping her magazine to the sand.

  “Um, I thought I heard something. Did you hear any strange music?” I didn’t want to alert her that I might be hearing things. I still heard the music, it wasn’t moving closer or further away like it did in the water. I just heard it clearly. I kept scanning the water, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Maybe a long necked Loch Ness monster was looming in the waters. Nothing seemed different.

  Julie sat up and looked in the direction I was looking and shook her head, “No, I hear the radio coming from the volleyball court. Are you okay?” She was staring at me again in that protective big sister mode.

  “Not the radio, it was almost classical.” Again, I alluded to the past like I didn’t hear it still.

  “Nope, would have definitely remembered hearing anything like that. Maybe it was a seagull.” She gave up on having me committed and lay back down. She grabbed her magazine and started reading again.

  I kept looking around overlooking the castle builders, the volleyball court and the surfers. At that moment, I noticed a gorgeous statuesque guy holding a surf board down the beach just standing in the water and staring right toward us. He was knee deep in the water. His long green and blue shorts were almost touching the waves as they rolled in. He was beautiful. It looked like he just stepped out of some male model magazine. From where we were I could see his striking blue eyes locked on something around us. I turned to see if anyone was behind me but nothing was there but a couple of sand dunes. I looked back and he was still staring. His strong facial features did not show anger or surprise, just severe concentration.

  “Hey Jewels, don’t look yet, but there’s this guy staring at us.” Of course, “don’t” in Julie’s vocabulary means “sit up right now and stare”. She looked in his direction and quickly flipped around back to me.

  “Oh Raegan! That’s Kyler Stone! Isn’t he gorgeous? Want to meet him?” I could see the match maker wheels rolling in her brain.

  “Um no that’s okay. He’s obviously busy.” I acted nonchalant about the whole thing. “He just looked familiar and he was staring.” He actually looked away to the water when Julie hopped up. The music became intense almost like movie music; anticipation music, not romantic music or even a lullaby. It was just music like something was about to happen.

  “What are you talking about; he’s surfing, or thinking about surfing. He’s not even wet yet.” Her wicked dark eyes flicked back to me, “Oooh, maybe we should let him get wet first. He’s got such great abs. Imagine the water dripping off those muscles. You should see his abs.” She drooled with
eagerness.

  I rolled my eyes at her for her benefit, but I felt the warmth flood my face. I did want to meet him. I felt drawn magnetically to him, but I couldn’t explain why. I hadn’t even noticed his body before she revealed another glorious point about him. He was shirtless and his lean muscles were tensed. I could imagine running my hands over his abs, but his eyes were what drew me. I felt like he was staring right through me.

  Julie noticed my staring again and turned around to yell his name. “Kyler! Hey, it’s Julie!” She waved her hand in the air at him and I cringed. “Stop it Julie!” I hissed. I felt my body heat up with embarrassment, and desire. He smiled back at her and waved. He looked out at the waters and then picked up his board and walked closer to us. I began to panic.

  He looked from Julie to me and his eyes locked on mine. Thankfully I still had my sunglasses on so he couldn’t see the terror in my eyes. My heart thumped loudly in my ears. I felt very nervous and excited at the same time. I realized the music stopped recently. My eyebrows formed a frown as I looked around and then back at the stunning beach god approaching. Maybe I was going crazy.

  His eyes looked confused. He paused and then flashed a heartbreaking smile full of brilliant white teeth when I returned my gaze. My head started spinning and I realized I quit breathing. I let out a quick breath and tried to breathe evenly as he got closer. I tried to collect myself so I didn’t behave like a total idiot in his presence.

  Julie jumped up and gave him a quick hug. Being the social butterfly of the school, she could get away with hugging everyone and no one thought any different. I could feel his eyes on me still as Julie introduced us. “Hey Kyler, this is my BFF, Raegan Mason. Raegan, this is Kyler.” Her voice dripped with lust as she displayed him with her arms as if I’d just won a prize.