Page 5 of Meant for You

Yep, it was a good thing I’d stopped believing in fairy tales. It happened right after my dad’s helicopter went down, killing both my parents ten years ago. He’d been a commercial helicopter pilot and they were going to celebrate their wedding anniversary with a weekend away. I stopped believing in a lot of things after that.

Then I’d met Dane.

My hand went to my chest and I rubbed at the pain behind my sternum.

I’d been delivered to my new foster home, twelve years old, scared out of my mind and so incredibly sad, and there he was. Dane had watched me from under his overlong hair, through his thick black eyelashes, golden-brown eyes assessing me, and I’d looked right back. Honestly, I hadn’t been able to look away from him.

That angry boy with the curled lip and the chip on his shoulder had scared away everyone who tried to get close to him, but not me—never me. I’d been drawn to him, something between us pulling me closer, from the start. Over time, he’d become my champion, my savior, my everything.

Then my aunt, a woman who shared a father with my mother—the result of an affair—a woman I never knew existed, found out about me and came for me.

And everything had changed.

But Dane remained constant. He sent me a cell phone as soon as he had the money. My aunt didn’t believe in them, so I’d gotten him to send it to one of my friends’ houses, and I kept that phone hidden for years. We told each other everything, called or texted each other every day.

Until he didn’t.

The pain of his rejection still felt like a fresh wound. Now, all of a sudden, he was back, and he wanted to talk? Was demanding that from me like he hadn’t ignored all my attempts to contact him for a year and a half, like he hadn’t made his family keep his whereabouts a secret from me. Me.

His girl.

That’s what he’d always called me.

I shoved him out of my head, or at least tried, and flung back the covers. I didn’t have time for this, didn’t want to think about it, him. I didn’t want to deal with it. It hurt too much.

No, running away from him last night wasn’t helpful or mature, but honestly, it wasn’t a conscious thing. Whenever I saw him, my flight instincts just kicked in. Like I was a freaking startled rabbit and he was a hungry predator. And if I stayed still, if I let him catch me, I’d be devoured.

Dramatic? Yes. But no less true.

While I was with my aunt, she made it clear she didn’t like outbursts of emotion, not for any reason. And for a girl who’d always worn mine on my sleeve, we’d had a serious rough patch for the first few months after I moved in with her.

I quickly learned to lock it all down, all of it, but when Dane left, the floodgates had burst open—or more, exploded—and locking it down had become an impossibility.

Which meant there was no hiding how much I’d missed him. There was no hiding anything I was feeling when it came to him.

He’d see it, he’d see it all, and I’d be sucked back into the Dane vortex. How could I not? And I couldn’t handle another blow from him when I still hadn’t recovered from the last.

I quickly showered and, careful of my stitches, replaced the Band-Aid on my forehead to keep it clean.

The wind coming from the mountains could still be cool, but the midsummer sun had become intense the last few weeks. I pulled on a pair of shorts and a blue tank top, slathered sunscreen all over, shoved on my riding boots, and pulled open the door—

A body fell across the threshold and I screamed…until I saw who it was.

“What the effing eff?” I yelled.

Dane lay sprawled in a heap at my feet, blinking up at me.

Then he grinned, slowly, sleepily, and oh-so familiar. “Hey, how’s my girl this morning?”

I ignored his sleep-roughened voice and nudged his shoulder with my boot. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He pushed up into a sitting position and shrugged. “Fell asleep against your door last night.”

“You’ve been out here all night?”

He yawned. “Apparently.”

“You idiot. You do realize there are wild animals around here, the type that would happily eat your stupid face off?”