“What is the matter?” Bridger asked the instant I opened the car door. He had been sitting in his idling car in front of the restaurant for almost an hour, watching me through the window.
My hands shook on my seat belt, making the metal clip rattle when I hooked it.
Bridger grabbed my hand. “You feel like ice!” He turned the heater on in spite of the warm night and pointed all the vents at me. “Why?”
I studied his face, wondering what to say. I absolutely could not tell him the truth—that I was a freak of nature who turned into an animal and apparently a poacher was hunting me—but I wanted to with all my heart.
“Maggie! I am freaking out here! What happened tonight?” he practically yelled. I could see the fear in his eyes and knew it mirrored my own.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I lied. “Just take me home.”
He put the car into drive and it lurched into the dark night.
I turned and searched the darkness behind us, though I don’t know what I was looking for. All of a sudden I had the terrifying suspicion that my secret wasn’t as secret as I thought. Rolf Heinrich knew about me.
Bridger sped to Mrs. Carpenter’s house and screeched to a stop in her driveway. I unhooked my seat belt and he unhooked his.
“Bridger, I can walk myself to the door.” He looked at me with haunted eyes. I opened my door and stepped into the dark, hostile night. Bridger’s door slammed and in half a second he was on my side of the car, his arms open, and then wrapped warmly around me.
I leaned into him, pressed my face against the soft cotton of his T-shirt, and tried not to cry. My arms snaked around his waist and I held on with all my strength.
“How can you stand it?” he asked after a long silence.
I loosened my hold enough to look at his face, shadowed by the newly risen sickle moon, but I wasn’t willing to let go of him. Not yet. Not when I suddenly felt like everything would turn out all right.
“How can I stand what?” I asked.
“This fear! It’s making me sick.” He glanced at the shadows looming on the edges of Mrs. Carpenter’s property. “You don’t get it, Maggie. I felt your fear when I was at home. That’s how strong it is.”
I put my head back on his chest, closed my eyes, and listened to the breath moving in and out of his lungs. If I could stop time …
“Maggie, I won’t leave until I know what’s wrong. I’ll stand guard at your bedroom door all night if I have to.” His arms tightened.
“Would you really?”
“Unless I can talk you into staying at my house?” he asked tentatively. “We’ve got a great security system, and more than one guest bedroom—you could have your choice.”
I thought of his huge, empty house. Then I thought of Kat watching my every move, always disapproving. I would never be able to sleep comfortably there. And I still had to feed the dogs and chickens, and check on Mrs. Carpenter. “No. It’s not so bad, really.” It wasn’t! The man, the poacher, was locked away in jail. Seriously, what could happen?
“What’s not so bad?” he asked, linking his hands behind my back so I could lean into them and look up at his face.
“Well, it’s just that some guy has been looking for me.”
“I remember you mentioned that at the park. Who is it?”
I shrugged. “No clue. But he knows … stuff … about me. And he’s in jail, so I don’t know why I’m so scared.” There. I had done it, told Bridger enough of the truth that he could fathom my fear.
“That’s everything?” He moved a stray piece of hair out of my eyes.
I nodded. Very noncommittal.
He pulled me to him again, his hand holding my head over his heart. “I have never felt this scared in my life,” he whispered. His cheek pressed down on top of my head. I closed my eyes and my body softened against his. Crickets chirped and a cool breeze stirred the warm air, whispering through the juniper ring. I sighed and tried to remember every smell, sound, the way my body fit against Bridger’s, the thump of his heart beneath my ear. One day he’d leave me. And when that day came, I’d need all the good memories of him I could muster up.
“That’s better,” Bridger said, pushing me gently away so he could see my face. “Now go to bed. But please lock your door.”
“I always do,” I assured him. His arms dropped and I was out of his embrace. “Thanks, Bridger,” I said, trying to force myself to feel happy and strong and calm instead of so thoroughly disappointed not to be leaning against his chest any longer. I craved his touch more and more every day.
“We still on for biking in the morning?” he asked.
“I am if you are. Did you resolve things with your dad?”
Bridger was silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “He asked me to call when I got home.”
“Good luck. I hope everything turns out all right.”
“Me, too.”
“ ’Night.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
I watched him pull out of the driveway and then went into Mrs. Carpenter’s dark house.
“Did I see right?” I jumped at the sound of her voice. She was sitting on the love seat in the dark. “Did that boy give you a long good-night hug?” I didn’t need to turn on the light to know she was smiling. I could hear it in her voice.
I tucked invisible hair behind my ears before I remembered it was in a ponytail. “Yeah,” I said, smiling myself. Thank you, Rolf Heinrich, for making Bridger hug me. “Can I get you anything? Or help you to bed, Mrs. Carpenter?”
A light flashed on, the new lamp beside the love seat. “No, I think I’ll sit up and read for a bit. I can manage.” Mrs. Carpenter winked at me and then opened her book. A book with a half-clothed white woman being embraced from behind by a shirtless Native American man.
“Sleep well,” I said, turning to the door.
“You, too. Pleasant dreams, Maggie Mae.”
Pleasant was an understatement.
I maneuvered the bike out of the barn and shivered. The morning air was cold on my shoulders. I glanced at my tank top and jogging shorts—both hand-me-downs from Kat O’Connell—and wondered if I should grab a sweatshirt.
I propped the bike against the barn and turned to shut the door. Shash looked at me and whined. He’d been whining at me from the moment I pushed him off my feet so I could get out of bed.
“You big baby. I don’t have the luxury of lazing in bed until noon, like you.” He lay down and rested his head between his paws, and I shut the door.
I climbed onto my bike, about to ride it to the end of the driveway where Bridger picked me up, but paused. A car door slammed, a sound as out of place as bees swarming at midnight—Bridger always waited in his car until I came to the road. I squeezed the bike’s brakes and stared down the driveway, thoughts of the night before, of what Naalyehe had said about the poacher, fresh in my mind.
Then another sound reached my ears—footsteps. Running along the gravel driveway. Toward me.
My heart exploded in my chest. I climbed off the bike and threw it to the ground, then clenched my fists and balanced on the balls of my feet. If the poacher wanted to kill me, he’d have to fight me first.
Adrenaline flooding my body, I stared toward the road, ready to face my fate. Bridger came running around the corner of Mrs. Carpenter’s house, his eyes wide with my reciprocated fear.
I ran at him and leaped into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and burying my face in his neck. I clung to his hard shoulders and forced the prickling tears to stay in my eyes.
“I thought you were someone else!” I gasped.
“Shh,” Bridger whispered, running a hand over my hair. “I didn’t mean to scare you, Maggie. It’s okay.” I felt more than heard the quiet laughter rumbling deep in his throat and realized he was holding me and I felt like a complete dork. I’d never been so close to a man.
I pulled away from his neck and stared into his dusky eyes, wondering if he could feel my embarrassment. He grinned and laughed louder, yet made no move to put me down. I unhooked my ankles, which had been anchoring my legs around him, and he lowered me to the ground. But instead of releasing me, his hands braced the small of my back and pulled me against him. He stared down into my eyes.
“You know … I love you,” he whispered.
The morning seemed to go silent, all sound squelched by my thundering heart. I wondered if Bridger could feel my heart hammering against his chest as I stared up at him in shocked silence. Had I heard him right? Did he really say he loved me?
He must have realized what he’d said. His hands loosened their hold and his eyes narrowed.
Warmth pulsed through my body, making me suddenly, uncommonly brave. I slipped my hand into his obsidian hair and, looking right into his eyes, pulled his face halfway toward mine.
Bridger froze. His eyes studied mine, like a wild animal’s searching for danger. A million different emotions traveled over his face too fast for me to guess what any of them meant. And then, so slowly I thought I might die, one of his hands inched its way up my back and into my loose hair. Still scared, still unsure, he moved his face closer to mine and paused. But then his hand tightened in the roots of my hair and his mouth found mine.
His lips were hesitant, as unsure and wary as his eyes had been, as gentle as a butterfly’s wings. But they felt so right on mine, like the missing link to my existence. I stood on my tiptoes, pushed my body against his, and wrapped my arms around his neck. Finally he realized I needed him like I needed air.
His arms pulled me against him so tight I could hardly breathe. I didn’t mind—breathing is highly overrated. I couldn’t get close enough to him, couldn’t touch enough of him, though my fingers were learning every angle of his face, knotting in his hair, sneaking into the short sleeves of his T-shirt, and discovering exactly how his muscles felt as they tensed beneath my touch.
His hands moved over every inch of my back, clinging to my tank top.
“Maggie.” He breathed into my mouth.
I growled deep in my throat—couldn’t help it! I was like an animal giving in completely to instinct. He pulled away, searching my face with eyes full of questions. Then his hold tightened around my waist and once again he leaned down and kissed me. For the second time I wrapped my arms around his neck, refusing to relinquish his mouth, his closeness. Him.
Silver City, New Mexico, seemed to disappear. Only Bridger existed in my universe. And if my Wiccan foster mother had been right and my stars needed to line up, there was probably a new constellation in the sky of a boy and a girl sharing a first kiss. In that instant, I knew I loved him more than I had loved anything or anyone in my entire life.
And then I remembered.
He would never be mine.
And I could never be his. His family would never let me be.
My heart clenched and my universe shattered. My stars sped way out of orbit.
His hands slowed their touching and his lips froze on mine. He pulled away and looked into my eyes. “Why are you crying?” he whispered, resting his forehead against mine and trying to catch his breath.
I closed my eyes in an attempt to stop the tears threatening to escape. “I’m a local girl.”
“Maggie, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
I opened my eyes and saw my pain mirrored in his, the glistening of unshed tears. Slowly, he took a step back, distancing himself.
“I can’t be with you for a couple of weeks. I came to tell you good-bye. After I talked to my dad last night …” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and waited for me to say something, anything, but I didn’t—just stared at him and wondered why my life seemed to be eternally cursed. And wondered how a suffocating wall of tension had sprung up between us. Then I knew. I had crossed an uncrossable line. We had crossed that line. He was guilty, too.
“Are you going to be all right without me?” he asked.
I clenched my teeth and folded my arms over my chest. “You are so arrogant. Of course I’ll be all right without you. I don’t need you to survive because I learned how to do that when I was five years old.”
“Promise me you won’t walk home from work at night. I don’t want to worry about you.”
“Then just don’t think about it, because I’ll walk home if I want,” I retorted. I was mad and wanted him to worry. He didn’t deserve my anger—the kiss was my idea—but I could tell he regretted that kiss, and that made me want to hurt him. “Are you leaving town?” I asked a little too sharply.
“I’ve just got to take care of some family stuff.” He studied me for a moment before looking down at his brown leather shoes. When his eyes met mine again, they were empty, the cold eyes of a statue. “I’m not sure when I’ll see you next.” There was a certain finality in his voice that made bile rise in my throat. I’d heard that finality in so many other voices, so many times in my life. And every time I’d heard it, I was shipped to a new foster home within days. I couldn’t talk.
“Screw this,” he whispered. He took a step forward and caught my face in his hands, looking right into my eyes. “You’ve got to trust me. And I’m sorry.” He leaned down and kissed me again—hard and fast.
Without another word, he turned and left.
I stood in the shadow of the barn for a long, long time. I had just experienced one of the best moments of my life.
Immediately followed by one of the worst.