Bonded (The Raegan Mason Trilogy) (3 page)

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.

“Hey, nice to finally meet you.” His voice sent vibrations through my body like a tuning fork.  I gasped and looked directly into those blue eyes again.  He was holding out his hand to shake mine.  I looked from his eyes to his hand and felt myself reach out toward him.

As I grabbed his hand I said, “Nice t-to meet you too.”  I managed to stutter as his warm hand heated up quickly in mine.  We both looked at our hands then quickly back to each other’s eyes.  He didn’t let go and neither did I until Julie cleared her throat and brought me back to reality. 

She looked at me, then back to Kyler.  Confusion covered her face and a hint of jealousy gleamed in her eyes.  “Do you two need a room?” She seethed.  I glared at her unable to speak or move away from his touch.  The heat and electricity raced from his hand through my whole body.  It was glorious pleasure.  I looked back to him and searched his face for any hint at why this might be happening and whether he felt it too.

His eyes were tightly focused on my face searching for my eyes. His rosy full lips were no longer smiling.  His chest muscles were tense and it seemed he too was having trouble finding his breath.   I looked back at our hands gripped firmly in a hand shake and willed myself to let go.  It was a bit of an awkward situation and that seemed like an obvious way to ease the tension.

“Wow, that was, um weird.” Julie said questioningly looking from me to Kyler.  “Do you know each other already?” she asked looking at Kyler first.

“No” we both said at the same time and that same vibration sent tingles all through my body.  He looked at me again, astonishment in his eyes.  Could he be feeling those same vibrations?

Julie was unconvinced and clearly uncomfortable with the tension.  “I’m going to go get a drink.  I’ll let you two ‘catch up’.”  She glowered at us and turned and walked away.

Kyler let out a strangled breath, dropped his surf board in the sand on the other side of Julie’s chair and sat down on his board.  He rested his arms on his knees grabbing his right hand around the wrist and looked down in the sand.  His light brown hair fell down over his face covering his eyes.  I couldn’t see his eyes anymore and my heart skipped a beat in anticipation.  I didn’t know what to say.  Questions flew threw my head but I didn’t want to sound crazy.  My mind rushed through everything Julie said about him for an ice breaker question or comment.  I was agonizing over not being able to touch him or see his face.  I felt completely ridiculous.  I’m sure he’d think I was a stalker if I reached out to touch him.  I balled my fists and tucked them under my legs.

“So you’re the famous Kyler Julie’s been telling me about.” I blurted out trying to get a response.  He inhaled sharply and held his breath for a moment.  His eyes were closed in a look of meditation before he slowly raised his eyes back to me.  Sapphire stones bore through me.  He smiled a quick smile and dropped his gaze.

“So you’re the legendary Raegan everyone tells me about.”  The tingles quivered through me again.  He watched me and I tried to hide my pleasure.  I grabbed my shirt to cover up some of the embarrassing flush my body was experiencing in his presence.

“I’m definitely not legendary.” I scoffed.  I stood up and pulled the sleeves of my cover up over my arms and tried not to ogle him like a stalker.