Bluedawn (A Watermagic Novel, #2) (7 page)

“Maybe…” He lifted an eyebrow. And then, to
my surprise he looked at me carefully. Something about his stare
confused me.

I wondered what he was thinking, but before I
could ask, he said, “Maybe we shouldn’t go to the bonfire.” He
looked at his watch.

“Why not?” I asked disappointed.

“It’s almost curfew.” He looked
uncomfortable.

“I doubt if the police will enforce it.”

His mind seemed to be reeling with enigmatic
thoughts. “Okay.” He paused in further contemplation. “Let’s get
out of here.”

After throwing the bag of food from the
market over his shoulder, he took my hand for the second time.
“Come on.”

Again, electricity shot through my body at
his touch. I wanted to kick myself for that. I feared I was the
only one feeling something. When I glanced at his face, I couldn’t
tell what was going through his mind.

Once we were outside with the orange light of
the torches on his beautiful face, he cautioned, “Now be warned—my
friends are going to hit on you, so just ignore them.”

“What do you mean?” I wasn’t used to that
many boys taking an interest in me. At school, most guys never even
seemed to notice me.

“Look at you,” he sighed.

I looked perplexed. “What about me?”

“You’re every dude’s dream.”

I burst out laughing. “Are you making fun of
me?”

“No!” his voice lifted. He actually looked
surprised by my reaction.

I shook my head and didn’t say anything else
about it. If he saw me as a dream girl, I certainly wasn’t going to
ruin that fantasy for him as ludicrous as it was. Maybe he was
really blind and that was why he led me around in the dark.
Whatever he saw in me, nobody else saw it.

When we got to the beach, I spotted a bonfire
ahead. As we got closer, I noticed a bunch of teenagers relaxing on
blankets and some people dancing. The music was not too loud. Led
Zeppelin was playing in its entrancing intensity; it was the same
CD Mom always played in the car. The sounds were almost
hypnotic.

“Hot dogs here,” Dylan called out as we
approached.

A lot of people looked over at us and several
kids waved or nodded at Dylan. “Rock on, Dyl,” one guy yelled
out.

Dylan set down the bag on one of the Mexican
blankets covering a large portion of sand. I noticed some people
glancing over at us. I got the feeling people were wondering if he
was interested in me.

We sat near the food and he took the heart
chocolate out of the bag and handed it to me.

“Better take this now before they devour
it.”

“Thanks.” I smiled at his thoughtfulness.

He pulled out some of the bottles from the
bag and started mixing them together. “I have a special drink for
you—alcohol free.” After the concoction became a bit mysterious, he
handed it to me.

Hesitantly, I tasted the grey drink. As the
cool liquid washed through my mouth, my surprise escalated. “This
is delicious!” My eyes lit up. “What’s in it?”

He smiled teasingly. “It’s my little
secret.”

“Come on,” I begged as I reached for the bag
to look at the labels on the bottles he had used for the mix.

But before I had a chance to figure it out,
some of his friends walked over and sat down beside us. “What’s up,
bro? What’s going on?” the three guys asked as they slapped his
hand and involved themselves in some secret boy handshakes. These
weren’t the same guys I saw him with at the mini-market the first
day. But they may have been the same bunch he surfed with.

“Hailey, this is Logan, Jeff, and DJ,” Dylan
mumbled. I got the feeling he didn’t want to introduce me because
the introduction was only one sided.

From what Dylan had said earlier, I expected
his friends to be lecherous or something, maybe like the blond at
the mini-market who said he wanted to suck face with me, but these
boys hardly noticed me at all. They were polite, but mostly they
just seemed distracted.

“We met some girls,” DJ whispered. He ran his
fingers through his curly mop of golden hair. I could tell he lived
at the beach because he had a surfer tan and his hair was very sun
bleached.

Logan leaned his massive, tall body closer to
us. “They’re smoking, dude.”

“Really?” Dylan laughed skeptically. “And
they’re on the endangered species lists?”

Jeff laughed. He was the shortest one and the
most agile with a sleek, thin build. His light hair was shaved
short. “It’s true, buddy.” He pointed with his chin at the three
young women dancing by the fire.

I looked along with Dylan at the teenagers. I
was shocked by the girls they were referring to. Even in the
shadows, they were stunning. They looked familiar somehow.

They wore long flowing skirts that billowed
in the wind showing their long legs through the sheer fabric. Their
bodies reminded me of Victoria’s Secret models. I could envision
them with huge angel wings and thong underwear with pushup bras
decorated in jewels. But the more I studied them, the more ethereal
they became, like angelic depictions painted on the ceilings of
ancient churches.

Their hair was excessively long. It gave them
a beautiful, exotic air. In the shadows with only flickers of light
from the fire, I couldn’t get a clear focus on their faces, but I
imagined they were gorgeous.

“They’re alright,” Dylan mumbled as he looked
out at the ocean. He was seemingly lost in thought. I could only
wonder what was on his mind. From his serene expression, I doubted
if it had anything to do with the visions dancing before the
fire.

“Alright?!” DJ pulled at a strand of his
blond surfer curls. “They’re on fire.”

Some other people Dylan knew came over with
greetings while they took hot dogs from the bag. They threaded them
on old wires they scavenged on the beach and roasted them in the
bonfire.

Once the Led Zeppelin song ended, the
otherworldly girls walked over to DJ, Jeff, and Logan and draped
their rapturous bodies over them. Their faces were even more
stunning than I expected. Their skin was absolutely flawless, a
bronze tan, and their hair shined like polished gold, obsidian
rock, and ruby red.

And then it came to me; I recognized them.
They were the same girls I saw on the dock through the big window
that overlooked the wharf at the fish and chips restaurant.

“Hi, love,” the golden blond said to me. Her
voice was as soft as silk. She was staring at me with intense blue
eyes. I got the feeling she was giving me special attention, but I
couldn’t figure out why. “I’m Wren and this is Lyra and Gia.”

Lyra brushed her long nails through her jet
black hair. It looked so soft that I almost reached out to touch
it, but knew better. “Greetings, scrumptious girl,” she whispered
as she looked at me curiously with her ocean blue eyes. Her voice
was also as lovely as a song, but her nick name for me sent chills
up my spine.

“Nice to meet you,” Gia sang as she looked
away out at the water. She was the red head of the clique. Her
voice was huskier and in a sense I could picture her in black
leather with a whip. But her eyes seemed a contradiction, dreamy
like golden sunlight shining on a tropical blue sea.

Wren, Lyra, and Gia. I felt like I had
stepped onto a movie set or maybe even into the clouds. They almost
didn’t seem real. And though I could reach out and touch them if I
tried, something about their presence seemed almost wraithlike.

The three of them chatted with me for a
while. I was surprised how friendly they actually were, except for
Gia. She seemed distant, always looking away.

Wren and Lyra told me all about alluring
trips the three of them had taken to exotic countries. I was
surprised to learn that they were fraternal triplets and orphaned
from their parents at the age of sixteen. Now they were eighteen
and had spent the last two years traveling the world with their
trust fund money. Their aunt had been awarded legal guardianship,
but she let them run free.

I liked them a lot and wanted to know more
about their lives, but Logan, Jeff, and DJ pulled them away. It was
for the best though because more than anything I wanted to spend
time with Dylan.

“You should be careful around those girls,”
Dylan whispered to me after they pulled Dylan’s friends over to the
other side of the bonfire to slow dance.

“They seemed nice.” I shook my head,
surprised at his warning. “What are you afraid of?”

His expression looked cautious. “There’s
something not quite right about them.”

“They seemed normal enough. Nothing like
crazy Ranger Mike.” I frowned slightly because I really wanted to
get to know them better.

He stood up and held out his hand to me.
“Come. Let me take you back to your parents.”

My heart fell. Was he trying to get rid of
me? I shouldn’t have been surprised after his hesitancy earlier. I
felt stupid for not taking the hint back at his cabana. He didn’t
want to be with me.

“Okay,” I said trying to sound unaffected. “I
am tired.”

Our walk home was quick and melancholy. No
more walking in the dark. He made me use the flashlight the entire
time. His eyes kept darting to the woods and even up in the
trees.

“Did you hear any whispers in the forest
since you’ve been here?” he asked once we got to my campsite.

I rolled my eyes. “What do you mean?” He was
acting weird. And the only thing I wanted was for him to take me
into his arms and kiss me. Oh, and I wanted him to ask me out
again, of course.

But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I
couldn’t figure out what I did to make him lose interest so
suddenly. Maybe he never felt any attraction to me to begin
with.

“How long are you and your family staying
here?” he asked as he glanced out at the dark ocean.

“We’re camping for two weeks.” My stomach
felt like it was tied up in a knot.

“Two weeks!” He almost shouted. His
expression was aghast. “You shouldn’t stay so long. It gets boring
here. What were your parents thinking?”

I just wanted to run away. If he didn’t want
to see me again, he could avoid me easily enough. I guess he was
afraid I’d stalk him at his cabana or something pathetic like
that.

“Well, it was my idea to vacation for two
weeks.”

“Alright,” he said in irritation. “It doesn’t
look like your mother and father are even here.” His expression was
even more irate.

“They went to the Starlight Opera.”

His eyes widened even further. “That’s like
an hour away! What kinds of parents leave a young girl alone in the
woods?”

Now he was offending me. Nobody should talk
about my folks like that. “I guess they’re the types who don’t kick
their kid out, but trust me enough to not smother me. I am almost
eighteen.”

He backed away. I could tell I hurt him by
using what he had told me about his mother and stepfather against
him. “Lock the door when you go inside.” He shook his head. “This
is going to be a long night,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Fine,” I stomped away. But when I opened the
motorhome door, I thought I heard whispers coming from behind the
trees again. I turned back and looked at Dylan who was still
watching me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I do not approach her, I
merely skirt the periphery of her existence…
--Søren Kierkegaard

Goose bumps lifted on my arms. Quickly, I
shut the motorhome door and closed the blinds on the tiny window. I
put my head in my hands as I leaned against the inside of the
door.

I didn’t want to stay in the motorhome alone.
Right then I made a decision. Once he was far enough away from my
campsite, I would go back to the beach and hang out with the others
at the bonfire. Just because Dylan didn’t like me didn’t mean I
couldn’t make friends and enjoy my vacation. There were plenty of
kids at the fire who weren’t even associated with Dylan and his
crowd.

And why shouldn’t I hang out with Wren, Lyra,
and Gia. They were nice. He was probably just jealous that his
buddies were getting hotter girls than he was. Maybe he wanted to
get rid of me so that he could pick up on one of them. He stood a
much better chance than Logan, Jeff, or DJ. They were good looking,
but not hot like Dylan.

The more I thought about it, the more I
realized that Dylan couldn’t have been interested in me in the
first place. He could get any girl. I wasn’t exactly prized
meat.

For who knows how long, I stood there
thinking about Dylan. I must have analyzed everything he said the
entire night a million times. For whatever reasons, I was crazy
about him.

Oh, the more I pondered about how much I
liked him, the sicker I felt. I wished I had never met him. Then I
wouldn’t have to know what I was missing out on. I couldn’t imagine
ever meeting a guy like him ever again.

Taking the gold medallion he gave me out of
my pocket, I gazed at the sapphire dagger that the mermaid held.
Dylan was a once in a lifetime boy. He was the kind of guy I could
have a twenty year anniversary with like my parents, the kind of
guy I could love forever. And as crazy as it sounded, I could tell
all that after just one night.

When you meet that one special boy, you just
know he is right for you in your gut. You don’t need years to
figure it out. You just feel it when it happens and absolute
certainty takes over.

But apparently Dylan Masters didn’t feel the
same way about me.

I threw my body down on the foldout bed
beside the kitchen and buried my face in my pillow. Though my eyes
welled up and snot filled my nasal passages, I wouldn’t cry. The
turn of fate was too painful to accept. I held in my emotions and
just allowed my body to ache all over. The medallion fell from my
hand and dropped to the floor.

I tried to make excuses for him. Maybe he was
just tired and needed sleep, I rationalized. But if he felt any of
the same tingling sensations in his body as I felt in mine, then he
would be as restless as me. How could anyone even relax when there
was an electrical storm going on in their head? I didn’t want to
accept that this was just a meaningless passing night.