by Jill Sanders
Back then, Katie had always kept her dark hair longer and she had worn the finest clothes. She’d been the type of girl who had never really left the house without looking her best. Now he looked over and noticed she didn’t have a drop of makeup on, and her hair, he chuckled lightly, was coated with a dusting of flour. Her clothes looked worn and very comfortable, and he couldn’t remember her looking better.
Shifting his weight and trying to get more comfortable, he remembered the one kiss he had shared with her. He remembered the softness of her lips and remembered how soft she felt just a while ago, against the wall, as he held her there. Closing his eyes, he remembered feeling her chest against his as they gasped for breath. She was small and had always felt just right in his arms. He used to chalk it up to friendship, that they had known each other forever, but he knew it was more than that.
He wondered if he had acted differently back at the party, if they would have ended up somewhere else, rather than hiding out in a storage closet, sleeping on flour bags, and running from thugs who probably wanted him dead, and Katie for ransom.
It was the only explanation he could think of and he itched to step outside and make a phone call, but he knew that Katie was a very light sleeper. He didn’t want to explain who he was calling and why, so he would just have to wait until he heard the light, little snore he knew so well before sneaking out to give an update on their predicament.
If she knew that her mother was the person he’d been checking in with, he was sure she wouldn’t follow him to Rome. Which was where he was sure they needed to go now that there were men after her. She needed the protection of her family and her closest family was in Rome. He didn’t know Damiano and didn’t want to take the chance of trusting him. He started thinking of how they’d get to Rome in the fastest way possible.
He knew she was upset at her mom. Hell, he’d been upset at her to begin with. But things had changed when she had opened up to him one day over lunch. He’d actually sat and listened to her and he could see the changes Kathleen had made. She was different and he couldn’t deny that she’d changed for the better. So he’d gone on this journey with her backing him the entire way. It wasn’t that he needed her money; he had plenty himself. But he was going to look for Katie, anyway, and if he didn’t have to touch his money while doing it, why not take the extra help. Besides, the only real cost had been hotel rooms.
Looking at Katie asleep on the pile of bags, he remembered seeing her for the first time. He had watched her walk across the hot cement around the country club’s pool. She had walked towards the slide with her head held high, like she owned the place. He’d been intrigued then, so he’d watched her, and seen her laugh, seen the joy she’d experienced falling down the slide. Then when she’d hit the water, he’d watched her struggle to swim to the side of the pool.
It had just been luck that he’d been watching her that day, but he still didn’t know why his eight-year-old mind had locked onto her.
He still didn’t know why she was the one person he still cared more about in this world than anyone else. At first their relationship had just been friendly. Actually, she’d annoyed him at first. He had tried everything to get rid of her at the country club. He’d begged his mom to not go every day or at least at different times. But it had never failed. Every time they drove up, she’d been standing there, waiting for him.
He remembered one time trying to go in through the back gate, just to avoid her. It was like she had a radar. She’d been there at the back gate that day, waiting. It wasn’t until almost three months later, when a few other boys he’d been hanging out with made fun of her, teasing her about something, that he’d finally started looking for her each time. He didn’t like having a little girl following him, but he hated bullies even more.
Two years later he realized how much she’d come to mean to him as a friend. He’d tried out for basketball in junior high; he’d made the JV team and was upset that he hadn’t made varsity. When he’d gotten back to his locker, there was a small note from Katie. He still had the note tucked away in an old shoe box in his mother’s attic. She’d told him how proud she’d been that he made the team, and he’d felt like a fool for not being happy about what he’d accomplished. Thirty-six other boys hadn’t made the cut. She’d always grounded him like that, letting him see the things that had been truly important, instead of just the things he had thought had been important.
When he’d started looking at girls in a different way, she’d been there and never once had he thought of her in that way. He thought she’d treated him like she’d treated her brother. Looking back at it now, he could see the differences. He must have been blind to the fact that she’d held him higher than she held her brother. She’d had something more for him, just like he’d always had something more for her. He’d just never had a name for the feeling.
Now he realized that she had always been more than just his best friend, she was the only person he had ever completely trusted in his entire life. He felt terrible for keeping things from her, but he knew he needed to in order to get her where he wanted her. What he was struggling with now was that where he wanted her was starting to change in his mind. He had been thinking about wanting her in places he’d never imagined before.
Shaking his head clear, he tried to close his eyes and his mind and get some rest. They were going to have a very busy day ahead of them.
Chapter Four
Katie woke when she heard the door click shut. Sitting up quickly, she coughed at the plume of flour that followed her, and then she heard Jason laugh from his seat against the front door.
“What was that?” she asked between coughs.
“What was what?” he looked across the room at her, smiling.
Looking around the room, she noticed her backpack was leaning against the opposite wall.
How? When did you go get this?” She started to grab for it.
“Hang on, Katie. Before you…” It was too late, she noticed it then. The bag had been cut open and half of the contents were missing, including her hair brush. Rummaging through it, she took stock of everything that was missing. Her gray sweatshirt, her other pair of shoes, the hair brush and the tube of toothpaste she’d just purchased were all gone.
She still had her shorts, another pair of jeans, and thank goodness, all her undergarments were still accounted for. The secret money she had tucked in the inside zipper was gone. That was okay with her, it had only been fifty euro’s. She had kept the means to her real money on her, just in case she ever lost her backpack.
“How did you get this back?”
“You aren’t upset?”
“Upset at what? That you snuck out of here without me to retrieve my bag, or that you forced me to leave it in the first place? No.”
He shook his head, “Katie, they took your passport, your wallet, everything.”
She started to laugh, “Jason, I can replace my passport. Actually I’ve had to once already on this trip, shortly after I arrived in England. I think I left it on the bus to Munich.” She looked off in the distance trying to remember.
“Who are you and what have you done with my Katie?” When she just looked at him, he chuckled at her. “Well, I hope you’re not very hungry. All I could get was a couple apples and some rolls.” He pulled out a brown bag. “But we will have to eat on the road. The sun is already up and we need to make sure those men aren’t around to see us leave.”
Katie stood up and dusted herself off, causing such a large cloud of flour that Jason had actually stood outside waiting for it to dissipate.
She used this private time to change her shirt and finger comb her hair to look somewhat normal. Her skin felt like there was a light coat of flour all over her, and her head itched. She wanted a shower badly.
When she walked outside, the warm sun and the wonderful sounds of the town greeted her. She smelled freshly baked goods from down the street, and the town felt like it was coming alive.
She started walki
ng towards the bus station, knowing she had only a few hours to get to the New Edges building before her meeting with the father she had never met. She still needed to stop at a clothing store and buy new clothes, then check into a hotel and shower before she met with him, so she picked up the pace as Jason walked beside her.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m heading to the bus station.”
“Good idea,” he said, easily matching her pace.
When they reached the bus station, she was about to walk to the counter to buy her ticket, when Jason pulled her to a stop and yanked her back out the door.
“What?” She tried to pull her arm free.
“He’s here!” he hissed and continued to try to pull her away. She looked around, and seeing nobody she knew, tried to pull her arm free again.
“Damn it, Katie, will you just trust me. Look.” He pointed across the sidewalk, and through the glass window she saw a large man in a dark green shirt. His nose was broken and he had a black eye. She’d never seen the man before in her life. Looking back at Jason as he continued to march them across the street, she asked.
“Is that the man who attacked me last night?”
“Yes, one of them. Hopefully he didn’t see us. Come on, we need to get out of here.”
“Why don’t we just…”
“No, I’ve got a new plan. We’re getting out of town.”
She stopped dead in the middle of the road. “No, I’m going to go met my BD, across town. You can do whatever you want.” She started to pull her arm free.
“Your BD?” He held onto her arm.
“Biological Dad, you know Damiano Cardone.”
“Listen, Kat…” He ran his hands through his hair, looking like he was going to pull it all out. “He isn’t in town anymore.”
She turned to look at him. His eyes were downcast and she would have sworn he was lying to her, but Jason had never lied to her, ever.
“How do you know that?”
“I’ll answer your questions, if you just follow me now; we need to get out of town quickly.” He pulled her to the outskirts of town.
She stood there on a dirt road, watching him almost panic.
“We could rent a car? I think I saw…”
“No, we can’t chance going back in town. There has to
be --”
Just then, a large bus turned the corner and started heading towards them. Jason smiled at her and started waving his hands and walked to the middle of the road.
To say the bus was rusty was an understatement. It was packed with people, chickens, and even a few goats.
A few minutes later, she sat on the old bus in the hardest bus seat she’d ever experienced and shared her breakfast roll with the large hen which sat on her lap in an old wire cage. She smiled slowly at Jason who was sitting across from her, looking very uncomfortable.
A large billy goat was getting a little too close to his crotch with its horns. Jason’s hands kept snaking down to cup and protect himself, and Katie found this all too funny. She tried, really tried, not to laugh out loud, but the little boy who was holding the leash of the billy goat was not paying attention and it kept putting its nose and horns where they didn’t belong.
Jason had always been really good around kids. After getting his millionth black belt in Judo back in high school, he’d started teaching some of the classes himself. She’d taken his class one year and had fallen even more in love with him. He’d been so patient with her and the other kids in the class.
She’d been the only grownup in a room full of ten year olds and she’d enjoyed watching him interact with the younger kids. He didn’t talk to them like most teenage boys did, just trying to impress a girl and acting like they were somehow very stupid. Instead, he’d talked to them like they were little adults, and he was careful to explain everything in an easy and fun manner.
She’d learned a lot that year in his class, enough to help her escape those two men last night. She knew Jason was the only reason she’d gotten away. If he hadn’t been there… she shivered thinking about it.
When they had been on the bus for a little over two hours, Jason got up and walked over to her. “Come on.” He nodded towards the front of the bus.
“Come on, where?”
“We’re leaving.” He grabbed the hen and handed the cage to a little girl who sat on the next seat, then he took Katie’s hand and pulled her up. They started to make their way to the front of the crowded bus where Jason tried to communicate to the local driver. Katie leaned over and looked at the landscape just as the bus slowed down.
“We’re getting off here.”
“Here?” Katie looked out the window again. She didn’t see any signs of a town, houses, or any other buildings. As far as she could tell, there was nothing within miles of where Jason had just asked to be dropped off. They stepped off the bus, and when the doors closed, she felt a little abandoned. She watched as the bus coughed a big puff of black smoke as it left them behind.
She looked around the beautiful countryside and would have enjoyed the scenery if she wasn’t worried about being stranded. The rolling hills were very green and she noticed they were full of wild flowers of almost every color. She could even smell the freshness in the air, like some of those flower plug-in’s she used to buy for her bathroom.
“Well.” She turned and looked at him with her arms crossed.
He smiled back at her, “Well?”
“What are we doing out here in the middle of nowhere? I walked several miles yesterday after being dropped off by a bus, and let me tell you,” she stepped closer and pointed her finger into his chest, “I’m in no mood to walk that far again. We were perfectly fine on the bus, no one was following us. There was no danger. It was taking us to --” he silenced her by tugging on her hand.
“Jason!”
“It’s better to show you than to stand here listening to you.” He smiled at her and kept tugging her hand until she gave in and walked with him towards a small hill. She was steaming mad by the time they reached the top of the hill. What was wrong with him? He’d never talked to her like this before. Looking out over the hill, she saw that they were within a short walking distance of a small city.
“How did you know that was there? Why did we have to leave the bus?” She tugged her hand free of his, missing its warmth instantly.
“I used GPS,” he said, pulling his iPhone out of his pocket. “Whoever is after you could be watching the bus routes into town. We’re going to wait here until evening, then walk into town.” He looked around, and after grabbing her hand again, started walking in the opposite direction.
“Stop!” She pulled her hand away and stopped walking. “I’m tired of you yanking me around by my arms.” She started to cross her arms, but then realized it might look childish.
They were on top of a small hill in a very large, green field in the-middle-of-nowhere Greece, and she could see for miles as a light breeze cooled her face. Small houses with red brick tiles for roofs lined the countryside. Katie noticed that there was another small town just back down the hill from where they stood.
“Katie --”
“No! You promised me answers and I’m not going anywhere without getting some.” She dropped down in the soft grass and crossed her legs. She didn’t even look up at him as he hovered over her. She hadn’t gotten a lot to eat that morning and the apple and the half a roll she had eaten had worn off over an hour ago. She was hot, tired, and in need of a shower and a good night’s rest. She watched as several cars drove by on the road below them, not caring if anyone could see or not.
Jason sat next to her and pulled her hand into his own. “I’m sorry, Katie, for pulling you around.” He tugged her hand lightly until she turned and looked at him. She could feel the tears stinging the back of her eyes and tried to blink them away.
He reached up and gently wiped away a tear that had started to roll down her cheek.
“Katie…”
“Don�
�t!” she started to pull away.
“You want answers, but I need you to listen to me first.”
“I know that look in your eyes. I saw it that day at the coffee shop, when I explained that the kiss was just plan stupid…” she tossed her hands up, not knowing what else to say. It had been stupid back then; now, however, she wanted nothing more in the world than to kiss him again, right here, right now.
“I never did get to explain that.”
“Jason, you didn’t have to explain anything to me. It was written all over your face and was there in your eyes. I was drunk that night. God!” She closed her eyes and pulled her knees up to her chest, laying her forehead on them. “How many times must we go through this?” Part of her wanted to cry, knowing that he didn’t think that way about her or that maybe their friendship had been ruined.
